How to Rework Starcraft II

[ragnarok]

As flawed as Her Body's Plaything was, there was a lot to like. Kerrigan was consistently portrayed as trying to achieve redemption while still being Zerg. The OCs (a trend I usually despise with a passion) actually worked as characters, and even though Amon and his crew aren't overly in it, their presence is still felt. It's like how in Mass Effect the reapers take three games but when they come DAMN do they make their impact felt.

I think that at least Amon's forces should have started to take a more direct hand in Heart; we meet the Tal'darim armies and see the hybrids; Mengsk would be a disk one final boss, at which point Duran or Ulrezaj takes over as the big bad.

Same here. I had given Blackhole1 a LOT of suggestions and everything, I just felt he made too many fluffy moments into the fic. The whole fic had too much comedy, when it's supposed to be all serious business.

It's really hard to say if Amon's forces should have taken a more direct hand in HotS or not. Remember, we don't know if when Amon was revived, he was at full strength or not. It's entirely possible that the regular Xel'Naga put him in a place in the void to sap his strength, and as a result only as LotV began did he regain enough power to start doing things himself

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This occurs around the time the final third of WoL begins and it comes out of nowhere. The rest of the meandering narrative (if one can call it that) leading up to this point then just abruptly stops and gets ignored. As such, WoL has a very poor "middle" in its story, such that it's like the narrative only truly starts at the plot point quoted above (or rather, starts again but on a different tangent?) only for it to end a few missions later.

You know, speaking of the artifact when Valerian was telling Raynor, I DID always wonder why he couldn't think of this much sooner.

Remember, after you use the Ihan crystal, if Dr. Hanson is still on the ship, she would tell him that this could suck the life right of a Protoss. Makes me wonder if Raynor ever suspected the same could hold true for the Zerg right then and there.

[Turalyon]

Oh you poor, poor bastards. I will have solved world hunger before this debate is settled.

Heh, what can I say? Sometimes Rag's non-sequiturs are just too hard to ignore.

[ragnarok]

Heh, what can I say? Sometimes Rag's non-sequiturs are just too hard to ignore.

His version of solving the world hunger issue is merely to legalize cannibalism, I don't think that counts as a smart idea.

[Sheliek]

His version of solving the world hunger issue is merely to legalize cannibalism, I don't think that counts as a smart idea.

Freshly dead, healthy specimens, and don't eat the brain. Any problem after that is entirely subjective and therefore of no concern in an enlightened society.

[DDay]

basically, take whatever ragnarok says and DON'T do that, and you'll do fine in whatever rework y'all do

[ragnarok]

basically, take whatever ragnarok says and DON'T do that, and you'll do fine in whatever rework y'all do

Somehow I doubt that, DDay

[TheEconomist]

His version of solving the world hunger issue is merely to legalize cannibalism, I don't think that counts as a smart idea.

Damn, am I that transparent?

[Aldrius]

I'm so getting huge flak for this post.

Okay. In as succinct a way as possible, here's what I think the problems are, and how I'd fix them.

WoL

1) Jim is way too much of a super hero. In fact, all the protagonists are. When everyone's meeting up for the final battle in Into the Void it just feels like Wonder Woman called up the rest of the Justice League to go fight a really wimpy version of Darkseid or something. So I'd probably fix that. What saved Raynor from being boring/stale in the original StarCraft (and Brood War) is that he was used pretty sparingly, and when he was used he wasn't sickeningly successful at everything (in fact he failed a lot and made plenty of mistakes). I'm not sure WoL allows for that, but basically I think if Metzen had actually been writing the game and wasn't getting stonewalled by his team we'd have seen a much more dynamic Raynor character.

2) WoL in general is just so... soft. There's some fun plot lines but most of the subplots are pretty weak. Nothing really feels impactful enough and everything being so anthology based and not building on itself is pretty weak. Too many one-off planets. Also a lot of the plotting which was actually interesting just didn't get enough build-up/pay off. Tychus is interesting, but he really doesn't do much of anything outside of telling Raynor about artifacts and piloting the Odin. The whole revelation that he's working for Mengsk is revealed right at the beginning pretty much, and then doesn't come into play at all until the last cutscene.

3) Valerian is boring. For one of the big new selling points of the campaign Valerian is just SO dull. It seems like they were trying to make him ambiguous or mysterious but he just isn't. He's just... absurdly vague. It feels like he's trying to hide something, but in actuality isn't really hiding anything. So... I'd just write him better probably. Maybe have him actually be up to something. Maybe a plot which spans multiple games.

4) This one's the big one. The main dramatic thrust. Through out the story, the big question is... is Raynor actually going to go through on his promise to kill Kerrigan? It's not expressly stated but there's a lot of scenes referencing it and showcasing this fact. Then... they reveal the prophecy and the whole choice is pretty much taken out of Raynor's hands. If you kill Kerrigan; you ensure the end of all existence. So Raynor basically has no choice and the whole subplot is ruined.

5) For that matter, the existence of a prophecy and Zeratul's whole subplot is just absolutely atrocious. Prophecies are lazy, lazy writing and they take all the agency and authenticity out of a character's choices and decisions and they become nothing more than roles playing out a preordained storyline. And that's especially evident in this. Zeratul is also massively uninteresting after the first mission (while I hate the cutscene, I actually like that first cave mission as Zeratul, it's really fun).

6) And then the Overmind/Tassadar thing. I like the idea of going back to commune with the Overmind to find out something about the Xel'Naga, but the specifics are pretty bad. And I really didn't need to see Tassadar again.

WoL is just so patronizing.

But unlike Heart, it actually kind of knows what it is. Heart is just a mess.

1) It's just so... lukewarm. It's pretty much the exact same plot as Queen of Blades but stretched to be twice as long stuffed full of nonsense with a way more narrow focus and a really bipolar protagonist who can't make up her mind about what her personality is, who she is, and what she wants. Brood War Kerrigan was decisive, direct, knew what she wanted, and knew how to get it.

2) Mengsk is a lame villain. Mengsk was better as the amoral side character. An unpredictable element. Having him... I guess team up with Narud to make hybrid and whatnot just made him feel way too out of his element and made him a really one dimensional antagonist. He's just a slimy bastard. I don't wanna keep making comparisons to Brood War but that game knew to deal with him early because it knew that he just didn't have the legs to be a major antagonist for too long (also Brood War liked to change things up more dramatically and quicker than SC2 does).

3) Just... the supporting cast is a mixed bag ranging from cool/funny (Abathur) to what the hell were they thinking (Izsha) to please stop talking and get off my screen now (Dehaka). Could have been a lot stronger, and there probably could have been a much wider mix of different races involved. Again in... um... some other games, you got to see the different factions interacting with one another and there was more of a layer of complexity to things, where you got to see different perspectives. In all three of these products you're playing as a superhero with a slightly different flavour than the other superheroes who is fighting the EVIL Dominion, or the EVIL Tal'darim or the EVIL Amon and his Hybrids or the EVIL Renegade Zerg. That's pretty much universally what your enemies are. It just gets a little monotonous. Even if they tried to break up the mission structure (which I thought they did a crummy job at anyway).

4) The continuing issue with the Kerrigan plot, and just her whole interaction with Raynor feels so... artificial. They weren't even that chummy in Rebel Yell. Now, after she's slaughtered billions of people and killed friends he's cared about he's totally okay with running away with her and cracking wise? I get that they wanted to tell a romance story but it's lathered on pretty thick and not that well told. It also completely removes any culpability on Kerrigan's part as the Queen of the Zerg and then pretty much lets her have her cake and eat it too. Same with Zeratul and in LotV, Artanis, these people are just totally forgiving of Kerrigan for literally no reason other than a prophecy said they had to. It's infuriating.

Honestly I have issues with it, but Legacy of the Void is at least a tightly told story and is about something substantial. It doesn't have a heavy handed plot, it doesn't have insultingly bad dialogue or situations. It doesn't boil everything down to a prophecy or a single love story or even a single character (the protagonist is Artanis, and I don't really love him, but I don't dislike him either). Characters have to give things up, characters die (kind of stupidly, but they're people we actually care about and not one-dimensional villains). The new characters and the supporting cast are excellent, and they're not all just nice people that get along with our superhero protagonist. I REALLY don't like how Zeratul dies and it's really melodramatic, but it is pretty well done. I just wish he'd done something in SC2 that I actually cared about and thought was cool. Even the ending is pretty good. It still has some of the issues of WoL/HotS (mainly just... way too much filler, and way too much 'here's an interesting but ultimately pointless concept' like with the Primal Zerg.)

For a lot of these, I think the only really way to 'fix' them was to really just take more time with the storytelling and just... let it flow a little better.

[TheEconomist]

[Aldrius]

I said it in a new way, be quiet. :P