Q&A #10

[ImperialGuard]

Right, but you guys said "the choices aren't that important in the Starcraft universe",

They're not.

implying that repeating the same mistake wouldn't even matter in future expansions either because this isn't mass effect.

Not sure where you're getting that from.

[TcheQuevara]

Oh, I understand, or at least, understand the feeling itself, even if that feeling doesn't come from the same source. Just be greatful that you're not the only one getting angst from said source. Being alone in that feeling? Much worse. Trust me.

Then join us brother. Who cares about reasons and... sources? Pfff. This isn't the wiki!

Let us just hate. Hate and flame them. Until they get confused and change their minds again, causing more people to hate them. And we will be a million. And when Activision sells Blizzard for a dollar and never produces a Starcraft game again, we'll know we have won.

Telenil: the Tassadar thing is bad no matter how we look at it... but at least they're accepting it was a mistake, not saying it has anything to do with "Protoss logic". Protoss logic being different from ours makes complete sense. Who said humans act rationally, even when they think they do, and who said reason works the same way even in brains with different biology...? It would make sense if Protoss thought like we do. I'm more comfortable with Protoss making alien decisions than with they acting like humans with advanced technology.

Grad, I don't think the Overmind thing was a retcon. Or at least a very mild one... it was basically adding more information. I agree it was a big daring change, and so far I'm liking it.

[Gradius]

Grad, I don't think the Overmind thing was a retcon. Or at least a very mild one... it was basically adding more information. I agree it was a big daring change, and so far I'm liking it.

Anything that changes how the audience viewed a previous element is a retcon. That's the broad definition of a retcon. They could say that Raynor is secretly a Xel'Naga robot in disguise and then go: hey, this isn't a retcon, after all, we never said that Raynor wasn't a robot, now did we? It's just new information! x)

I don't see how anyone can like the fact that the Overmind went from a character with interesting and alien motivations (the pursuit of assimilation & perfection), to somebody who was a slave in his own mind and never undertook any actions of his own volition, all for the sole purpose of propping up the latest generic Sauron/Lord Voldermort villain at the Overmind's expense. It's dishonest to say that it's not a retcon just because it doesn't contradict explicit facts, and I've got nothing but contempt for the shady way that the writers go about defending this.

[Telenil]

In fact the Overmind being enslaved does contradict explicit facts. He speaks to the Zerg during the whole campaign -well more than speaks, collective conscience and all that- and it is very clear that he does NOT scream and rage in the prison of his mind. Not to mention that Zeratul did read the Overmind's mind at some point.
It's not like "huh, this new perspective feels weird in retrospect", it's more like "wait, the original briefings and manual actually show the exact contrary of what WoL claims."

I don't think you have much reason to be angsty over these Q&As as a fan of the game. To this day Kindregan has not admitted that the Overmind deal is even a retcon, or that any of their "mistakes" have been detrimental to the lore - in fact he says the exact opposite. I can understand why you'd be miffed at the choice of questions he picks to answer, but the only guffaw he's actually admitted to is the Thor, a pretty tough one to handwave away. But other than that he'll tell you there are no real plotholes or flaws, just "lack of 100% perfect execution" or "lack of detailed elaboration" or "less-than-optimal choice of dialog". He reiterates that "we're always looking to improve", but that goes for even the best stories.

Well, look at the answers from their perspective: no writer is ever going to say "we screwed up big time, our story is a failure, please forgive us". Pride aside, they wrote their story because they personnally liked it, if I liked a story and someone showed me how full of holes it was, I would still consider it to be likeable to an extent.

If a writer realised he screwed things up, I would expect him to say that his story "gave the wrong feeling" or "didn't work out". They would admit that they could have done things better, particularly about this or that, and that they are sorry that people didn't enjoy the story. That's about what Kindregan did: though he doesn't acknowledge some plot holes and doesn't always give a believable explanation, there have been a couple of examples where he outright states they should have done differently, he retconned a few things from WoL (such as Kerrigan being the-only-one-or-the-universe-explodes...), and admitted the story suffered because of their mistakes.
I think "not perfectly executed" and the such are more language of diplomacy than anything else, some answers make it pretty clear that they realized they had made mistakes.

[Gradius]

In fact the Overmind being enslaved does contradict explicit facts. He speaks to the Zerg during the whole campaign -well more than speaks, collective conscience and all that- and it is very clear that he does NOT scream and rage in the prison of his mind. Not to mention that Zeratul did read the Overmind's mind at some point.
It's not like "huh, this new perspective feels weird in retrospect", it's more like "wait, the original briefings and manual actually show the exact contrary of what WoL claims."

Exactly. But you'll still see people try to pretend like it's not a retcon because you can never prove anything 100%, which annoys the crap out of me. :P

Well, look at the answers from their perspective: no writer is ever going to say "we screwed up big time, our story is a failure, please forgive us". Pride aside, they wrote their story because they personnally liked it, if I liked a story and someone showed me how full of holes it was, I would still consider it to be likeable to an extent.

Well that's kind of my point, fans of this game really can't say that Kindregan is pandering to critics, even when he acknowledges some mistakes (which I do appreciate). I don't expect them to say "our work is garbage," but I do expect them to recognize retcons and not try to smooth over flaws by pretending they don't exist. For example:

Question: Why didn't the Protoss resurrect or unban the Colossi when Aiur was being overrun?
Answer: They recalled their Motherships! (I'm pretty sure there was a story written about that. :P) Resurrecting the colossi would have been far too slow a process. They simply wouldn't have gotten online in time to make a difference.

It's obviously not a slow process since all Zeratul had to do was wave his hand and the colossi appeared. Regardless of how he feels about his work, he didn't actually offer a solution and use this valuable chance to fix the lore. This is either a willful dodge, or Kindregan just isn't familiar with the criticism against the game, neither of which bode well for my faith in HoTS.

he retconned a few things from WoL (such as Kerrigan being the-only-one-or-the-universe-explodes...)

It doesn't look like he retconned anything, he appears to just be explaining the existing lore to the less-informed. i.e.

"But she's not the chosen savior, or a messianic figure, or the "prophesied one"; she's not in the prophecy at all. Is that complicated? Yeah, it is. I have something to say about that in a later post!"

Maybe it's a retcon in the sense that it contradicts what we see in the game (multiple characters telling us that she is the key to preventing the "In Utter Darkness" apocalypse scenario), but it's not much of a solution, at least to me. He does not offer any new information in this Q&A that fixes the problem.

Bioware went back & fixed their ending for ME3. I wonder if Blizzard would ever do the same. Probably not, nobody plays this game for the story.

[Telenil]

Fair enough. I suppose I consider myself happy for having even some mistake acknowledged, because it's more than Metzen ever gave us on the World of Warcraft forums.

[Hawki]

The thing that really irritates me is, Tassadar told Zeratul big stuff about the Overmind, but claims his present state is "a tale for an other day". The obvious course of action upon hearing this is to call Shakuras, say what has happened, tell Artanis to bring a science team, preservers and representatives of the Hierarchy, then make a full interrogation of the ghost to get everything straight - check if he is really who he claims to be, what he has learned about the Zerg, and how exactly he did.

Zeratul's been absent for four years. It's a lot to trust him by words alone.

As far as Tassadar goes, I'd rather see it retconned. There's a reason that fans keep suggesting that Tassadar is just an illusion used to trick Zeratul & isn't real. It's SC's version of indoctrination theory.

I'm afraid they'll do this, actually. And yes, I choose the word "afraid" for a reason. Why? Because it means that every foreshadowing of Tassadar's return and leaves us with the same unanswered questions concerning Adun and the Twilight Messiah concept (which I'd argue actually goes back to Khas, but whatever), but it's a deviation from what I feel was the original intent. "Fans want x, so we give it to them." To use your above example, I wouldn't have minded the indoc theory as being true if that was Bioware's original intent, but I wouldn't have wanted them to make it true to 'please the fans' if it wasn't.

I don't think you have much reason to be angsty over these Q&As as a fan of the game.

I never said the Q&As were a source of that angst. The feeling, I understand. It's a feeling that ranges from frustration on one end of the spectrum, to outright disgust on the other that you feel you have no choice but to walk away. It's just that SC2 hasn't invoked those feelings for me personally. Yet. I'm miffed at the lack of direct answers, but what miffs me more is that there seems to be a lack of foresight on them. The whole "is Tassadar really there? Wait and see!" or "well, there's prophecy and there's prophecy...wait and see!" are such examples. Why? Because it feels like the elements are still up in the air due to the negative reaction, and I think altering them will cause more problems than it solves.

Of course, this is coming from someone who didn't have a problem with them in the first place, but to use the Bioware example again, yes, I loathed the original ending to the game. I never asked Bioware to change it though. If anything, the main reason I applaud the extended addition was because they managed to keep the essence of the original ending in it. Yes, it's an essence I dislike, but I wouldn't want them changing that essence because it's what the audience wants.

Let us just hate. Hate and flame them. Until they get confused and change their minds again, causing more people to hate them. And we will be a million. And when Activision sells Blizzard for a dollar and never produces a Starcraft game again, we'll know we have won.

Not sure how that's a victory exactly. I thought your beef was with the game, not the series itself.

Anything that changes how the audience viewed a previous element is a retcon. That's the broad definition of a retcon. They could say that Raynor is secretly a Xel'Naga robot in disguise and then go: hey, this isn't a retcon, after all, we never said that Raynor wasn't a robot, now did we? It's just new information! x)

Oh right, the robot example again.

I think you need a better definition of a retcon though. If a retcon is defined as "new information that changes how an audience looks at an element," then...well, you bring up Voldemort and Sauron for example, so by definition, book 6 of HP is a retcon because it gives us info on Voldemort's past we didn't know until then. By the same definition, Sauron is retconned twice - first in Lord of the Rings where it's revealed he was the Necromancer from The Hobbit, and then in The Silmarillion where his backstory is explored further as a lieutenant of Morgoth, and of being a maia spirit before that. Never heard anyone call those things retcons. Usually, that new lore has to have a degree of contradiction for it to be a retcon.

Which the Overmind info is, don't get me wrong. Just being a stickler and all that.

Well, look at the answers from their perspective: no writer is ever going to say "we screwed up big time, our story is a failure, please forgive us". Pride aside, they wrote their story because they personnally liked it, if I liked a story and someone showed me how full of holes it was, I would still consider it to be likeable to an extent. If a writer realised he screwed things up, I would expect him to say that his story "gave the wrong feeling" or "didn't work out". They would admit that they could have done things better, particularly about this or that, and that they are sorry that people didn't enjoy the story.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. You're assuming that there's a universal standard by which fiction is judged, that the only reason a writer doesn't agree with fans is because of pride. Maybe in his/her mind, they didn't screw up. Despite what some people say, writers don't "owe" their fans anything. They can take feedback as they will, but how they implement it, if at all, is at their discretion.

So yeah, I'm iffy about Kindragen's responses, but not for the same reasons. It's like he's hovering between his instincts (liking the story) and the need to please people, hence why he haven't got many clear-cut answers on controversial topics. As if, for instance, "I like the idea of Tassadar coming back, but fans don't, so I guess I better cave in." It's what concerns me more than the lack of answers on certain questions that should have easy answers (e.g. the nanites. Just say they don't work anymore. There's no need to dance around the question). If a writer believes in what (s)he is writing, then I'd like to think they have the conviction to follow through with it. Choosing what feedback to implement is their porogative. Not the fans'. They can make the changes fans want, but if they do, I expect them to honestly believe it will make the story better. Not to write something they don't want to write, but feel they have to because it's what the majority wants.

And yes, I'd say the same about plot points for other stories where I did dislike them. Again, the ME3 ending (there are many other examples, but I'm trying to keep to ones already established). Hated the old one, have a few gripes with the new one, but nowhere along the line did I feel Bioware owed their fans anything, let alone changing the ending outright.

[Gradius]

I think you need a better definition of a retcon though. If a retcon is defined as "new information that changes how an audience looks at an element," then...well, you bring up Voldemort and Sauron for example, so by definition, book 6 of HP is a retcon because it gives us info on Voldemort's past we didn't know until then. By the same definition, Sauron is retconned twice - first in Lord of the Rings where it's revealed he was the Necromancer from The Hobbit, and then in The Silmarillion where his backstory is explored further as a lieutenant of Morgoth, and of being a maia spirit before that. Never heard anyone call those things retcons. Usually, that new lore has to have a degree of contradiction for it to be a retcon.

The word "retcon" has come to mean a broad range of things. The wikipedia page provides a good definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroactive_continuity

And yes, additions are one type of retcon. More specifically, in the Overmind's & the Xel'Naga robot example, the addition of a shadow history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_history

The point is that it alters previous facts (whether explicitly or implicitly). Hopefully you can see why a shadow history would be a more overt retcon than the addition of new background information about a character.

[RetlocLive]

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[RetlocLive]

The word "retcon" has come to mean a broad range of things. The wikipedia page provides a good definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroactive_continuity

And yes, additions are one type of retcon. More specifically, in the Overmind's & the Xel'Naga robot example, the addition of a shadow history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_history

The point is that it alters previous facts (whether explicitly or implicitly). Hopefully you can see why a shadow history would be a more overt retcon than the addition of new background information about a character.

Kinda like when they all-of-a-sudden made Artanis the player character of Episode 3.

It somewhat fits. There's no concrete proof to show that this addition to Artanis' character cannot be true, but it now makes the dialogue interactions with Artanis being the inexperienced new guy throughout Brood War seem out of place since he's now suppose to be the almighty Executor that even fought alongside Fenix in battles before Episode 3.