What communication, if any, has there been with SC writers over the years?

[Nissa]

This is a weird thing to say, but I think the problem is gaps. In SC/BW, the story benefitted a lot from having moments where we didn't know specifically what happened. Like, we don't know how Kerrigan convinced Raynor and Fenix to get Mengsk for her. This happened naturally, because the story could only be told through mission briefings and in-mission dialogue. The cinematics in SC/BW were less about telling story than just telling a mood -- they don't actually progress the plot much. That, and they conceptualized things badly. Like, they should have kept the Overmind consistent with his past self -- and probably not even in SC2, but that's debatable.

In terms of the flow, structure, and pacing of the narrative acrosss each installment and having appropriate stakes, Sc2 actually improves. It doesn't make up for the fact that as a whole, it's not really a well-connected trilogy.

Uh...no. SC2 pretty much annihilated the stakes from SC1, at least in WoL and HotS. The Overmind's a pawn, Mengsk is an idiot, the Dominion isn't shown to have the political rivalries it probably should have after the events of BW, the UED is nowhere, Umoja and Moria are nothing, and Kerrigan cares about civilians. They even made Valerian be a good guy who helps Raynor and co whenever they need it. The tension died, my friend.

[Turalyon]

This is a weird thing to say, but I think the problem is gaps. In SC/BW, the story benefitted a lot from having moments where we didn't know specifically what happened. Like, we don't know how Kerrigan convinced Raynor and Fenix to get Mengsk for her. This happened naturally, because the story could only be told through mission briefings and in-mission dialogue. The cinematics in SC/BW were less about telling story than just telling a mood -- they don't actually progress the plot much. That, and they conceptualized things badly. Like, they should have kept the Overmind consistent with his past self -- and probably not even in SC2, but that's debatable.

I think you're onto something here but there are also a lot of moments in Sc2 where we don't specifically know what, how and why things happened as they did either. The retroactive continuity in Sc2 (one example being that Amon was the Xel'Naga who created the Protoss and Zerg - if he had such control over them and wanted to ultimately exterminate them and the Cycle, he could've done so right from the start...) exemplify this to a massive degree. I think the "gaps" you speak of in Sc1 are potentially plot holes for sure, but they not majorly important (which gives one the ability for one to have fun by filling in the gap through fanon/theories) or necessarily plot-breaking as well (like they are in Sc2).

Uh...no. SC2 pretty much annihilated the stakes from SC1, at least in WoL and HotS.

Ah, you misinterpreted the context in what I said. The improvement I speak of (things such as brevity, pacing and having appropriate stakes) was not from Sc1 to Sc2, but rather from within Sc2 itself (from WoL to LotV).

[RussianSpy27]

T, so this is a bit nuts. The man creates a beautiful universe in the state of angst and then decides to retcon an interesting Sci fi based origin story of the Overmind? Did Metzen become very religious that he needed to substitute a story about evolution with that of the Demonic possession? Makes no sense.

Also, not to undermine the productive and detailed discussions people had here about why Overmind left K behind during Aiur invasion, but it seems simple enough to me. Per manual, Overmind knew Protoss to be the most powerful species created by XN which would lead to a huge conflict and he wanted K behind to oversee the Broods because he trusted her and maybe because he wasn't sure Zerg were going to prevail.

[Turalyon]

T, so this is a bit nuts. The man creates a beautiful universe in the state of angst and then decides to retcon an interesting Sci fi based origin story of the Overmind?

Seems like it. It's been more than decade since the first game, his mind changed throughout that time because of, you know, life... just like Raynor's did after 4 years between BW and Sc2.

Also, not to undermine the productive and detailed discussions people had here about why Overmind left K behind during Aiur invasion, but it seems simple enough to me. Per manual, Overmind knew Protoss to be the most powerful species created by XN which would lead to a huge conflict and he wanted K behind to oversee the Broods because he trusted her and maybe because he wasn't sure Zerg were going to prevail.

I'd disagree with your reasoning. The Overmind didn't leave Kerrigan behind or in safe-keeping on Char. It left her to do the job that she was created for: to fight the Protoss. And not just any Protoss, but the most dangerous Protoss (Dark Templar) the Overmind had yet encountered! The Overmind probably drew from Zeratul that Aiur was possibly safer than Char given the lack of Dark Templar there and decided to launch a surprise attack. Sure, Aiur's most likely well defended being their homeworld and all, but that's why it brings the greater entirety of the Swarm with it to Aiur! Afterall, there's nothing stopping Kerrigan from joining the Overmind on Aiur later on after she's finished on Char... except that the Protoss were more crafty than the Overmind and its superweapon Kerrigan had factored in. The Overmind was always confident throughout the campaign despite it being described as being almost in despair in the manual about facing the Protoss. Thing is, since the start of the Overmind campaign, the Overmind was over-confident ever since it found Kerrigan and in its hubris, thought itself unstoppable whilst Kerrigan was in its possession. In a way, Kerrigan was both the Overmind's greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

Not sure if the thread is still around but FT and I had a good ol' debate with walls of text about this very thing. FT considered the successful invasion of Aiur as the end goal for the Overmind's final victory over the Protoss and that Kerrigan was billed by the Overmind to be the thing that achieved it. He felt it incongruous that what was the essential key to this end goal (Kerrigan) was not used overtly to reach that goal (since the Overmind just invades Aiur just like that after knowng Aiur's location) nor even that essential as it was built up to be (since Zeratul is the key to giving the Overmind Aiur's location). He had some good points but I countered that his presumption that the final victory over the Protoss being specifically the successful invasion of Aiur (with the natural implication of this being that Kerrigan's purpose was therefore to invade Aiur with the Overmind at that particular time) was incorrect.

[LordofAscension]

But anyway, has there been, or at least is there any hope to get Blizzard to hear and acknowledge our concerns? Not for nothing but they will definitely try to produce more DLC missions and perhaps more SC games and everyone can benefit from at least some
sort of dialogue.

I don't see this ever happening. Over the last decade I've almost puzzled out what happened (more or less), but anyone that actually knows the whole story will ever tell it (at least not in the foreseeable future). I spent time with Metzen, Chambers, Kindregan, and Waugh. Some of them played the cards they were dealt. I distinctly got the impression that pre-2007, SCII's story was more or less predestined.

Unfortunately, quality writing is not a guarantee of making more money though (it's usually the opposite), especially when it comes to games. Given that the investment in making quality writing would be considerable and quanitifiable, just assuming it will make more money when there's only a comparatively niche interest in it for games, would be an unsound business decision for a large game business to make. Also, the return for such an investment would have to be considerable to even justify it - it wouldn't be efficient to just "make some more money" if all that "profit" was just a small margin above covering the expense that was the initial investment.

I'm thinking that this is the reason they're stopped developing more story based DLC since Nova. It's more efficient and profitable for them if they invest in Co-op.

This. A thousand times this. Coop's popularity took them completely unawares. Coop is everything they thought the DLC would be. There's so many untapped story lines that would have made amazing DLCs (Kel Morians plz). Maybe in the future they'll return to DLC single player packs, but I think it has as good of a chance as SCIII. The future of the SC story will be told with EU tools (short stories/novels). In game canon is expensive.

What bothers me also is that HotS and LotV are generally also bad, with some exceptions. Dialogue is cheesy and childish. Following Amon into the Void? What is that, Hell in Space where human marines, zerg and protoss pop out in infinite numbers to fight against you? I understand that they messed up WoL by, like you said, not understanding SC, but they could still have fixed up HotS and LotV to suck less, but they didn't, despite all the feedback and criticism.

They brought Fenix back. They even included Stukov as homage to BW and other lore, but the cheesy, childish, uninteresting, Diablo in space/Warcraft in Space overall structure stayed the same.

The story is just bad. It lacks so many elements of SC & SCBW. Each of the three games' stories was never the story of SC or SCBW, they were too focused on telling more personal stories than that of the intergalactic war. One note on HOTS and LOTV - they were both boxed in by the choices made in WOL. Once that course was set, there was no deviating from the main story trunk. Yes, the dialogue could have improved and so could of the way the story was told, but it was one cluster after another. I wanted Tassadar back - HA. Fenix, please. Nothing about what that was what any Fenix fan wanted. Stukov was the closest to being good. But are there any examples of old heroes coming out of SCII more liked than their SC1 alter ego?

This is a weird thing to say, but I think the problem is gaps. In SC/BW, the story benefitted a lot from having moments where we didn't know specifically what happened. Like, we don't know how Kerrigan convinced Raynor and Fenix to get Mengsk for her. This happened naturally, because the story could only be told through mission briefings and in-mission dialogue. The cinematics in SC/BW were less about telling story than just telling a mood -- they don't actually progress the plot much. That, and they conceptualized things badly. Like, they should have kept the Overmind consistent with his past self -- and probably not even in SC2, but that's debatable.

Uh...no. SC2 pretty much annihilated the stakes from SC1, at least in WoL and HotS. The Overmind's a pawn, Mengsk is an idiot, the Dominion isn't shown to have the political rivalries it probably should have after the events of BW, the UED is nowhere, Umoja and Moria are nothing, and Kerrigan cares about civilians. They even made Valerian be a good guy who helps Raynor and co whenever they need it. The tension died, my friend.

I agree with so many elements of this. I harped to Gradius for years on topics just like this. SC1 - the story progression was driven by the mission briefings and the in-game dialogue. That was the extent of the tech. With the advent of better mechanics, Blizzard was so excited that they could tell the story differently, they never stopped to think if they should. Or perhaps more on point, they never stopped to think about what it was that made SC1's story so endearing and good. For me, it was the politics and the broad scope that was driven by strong characters. It was never the individual character's struggles or growth - yes some parts of those were important (Tassadar's journey from idealistic executor to the twilight messiah), but I never cared all that much about one particular ship's quest through the galaxy. I wish they had just stayed the course that they laid the ground work for in BW. There never needed to be an ultimate evil. What made SCBW Kerrigan so compelling was the fact that she knew what she was and embraced it. It was the choice that made the various betrayals meaningful.

I could go on and on and on. I can't count the number of times I tried to write my opus on this very topic, but I never could finish it.

~LoA