What other ways could the xel'naga been drawn like?

[Turalyon]

The first game in the franchise should not have resolved any of the conflicts introduced in the manual.

So you're advocating for nothing much to happen in the game? Why even bother making a game story when all you need is the manual? Having a game story that purposefully moves like molasses and doesn't cover much ground in the hope that they'd get time later to finally get around to those conflicts in sequel number 6 is a lot to ask for/ride things on, if anyone even still cares at all after the first one.

[Mislagnissa]

So you're advocating for nothing much to happen in the game? Why even bother making a game story when all you need is the manual? Having a game story that purposefully moves like molasses and doesn't cover much ground in the hope that they'd get time later to finally get around to those conflicts in sequel number 6 is a lot to ask for/ride things on, if anyone even still cares at all after the first one.

Tura, please stop arguing that they could not do this in 1998. I am talking about a hypothetical reboot made with the benefit of hindsight and foresight. The reboot goes back to basics and plans to use the setting as a backdrop for a multimedia franchise. Therefore, my assumptions make sense in that context. They do not make sense in the 1998 context you are arguing. Your line of discussion is not productive with respect to mine. Please stop arguing from your context of 1998 and start engaging with my context of a hypothetical reboot. Please never argue from the 1998 context ever again because I am never interested in engaging with that.

I do not know how I can make it clearer to you.

[ragnarok]

Tura, please stop arguing that they could not do this in 1998. I am talking about a hypothetical reboot made with the benefit of hindsight and foresight. The reboot goes back to basics and plans to use the setting as a backdrop for a multimedia franchise. Therefore, my assumptions make sense in that context. They do not make sense in the 1998 context you are arguing. Your line of discussion is not productive with respect to mine. Please stop arguing from your context of 1998 and start engaging with my context of a hypothetical reboot. Please never argue from the 1998 context ever again because I am never interested in engaging with that.

I do not know how I can make it clearer to you.

Your problem is that you hate the SC2 storyline so much that you feel the only "success" Blizzard had in it was they failed EVERYTHING, hence why it's necessary to reboot the whole franchise. It's not necessary for that, they only needed to redo things in HotS, and then try tying a few things up via LotV

[Turalyon]

Tura, please stop arguing that they could not do this in 1998.

That's easy for me to do because all you have to do is to stop taking the perspective that I'm arguing from "1998" then with that post. The questions I raised there are still valid since it hinges on people caring enough about the manual to want to go into the depth you're proposing.

How are you not going to get bogged down into what amounts to minutiae/details that people may or may not care about? What constitutes as progress in your reboot narrative? What's part 1 of your narrative? Where does part 1 end? What stuff is going to be covered in that and is it really that important to go into certain details if all of it's just mood setting with nothing of significance happening the whole time? Is it really going to feel important enough to some grander narrative if we go into this detail? Is it all gonna join up and when - part 3, 7, 12? What makes people care enough to get through all that before the actual conflict of the three races begins? It's all well and good for you to say what "should" have happened based on the manual but how does this form an engaging long-term narrative? Wouldn't this stuff be better covered with books than a game story? Some people just don't want to sweat the details to get to the good stuff.

[Mislagnissa]

Your problem is that you hate the SC2 storyline so much that you feel the only "success" Blizzard had in it was they failed EVERYTHING, hence why it's necessary to reboot the whole franchise. It's not necessary for that, they only needed to redo things in HotS, and then try tying a few things up via LotV

The games suffer from a terrible case of sequelitis, as Tura has already explained. The original game was written as a self-contained narrative that sequels could never hope to match. For god's sake, it ended with the death of a villain who planned to literally eat all life in the universe and was the leader of one of the three playable sides. Of course no sequel could ever hope to compare and any sequel to that would only get worse!

The Queen of Blades was a Saturday morning cartoon villain who just wanted to take over and kill billions of people because the writer said so. Even the nazis and the taliban had more depth as villains, since they literally believed they were the good guys. Likewise, Amon just wants to kill everyone because the writer needs to force the three races to become friends and make peace at the end.

Not only that, but the SC1 final game narrative did not do nearly as much with its premise as it could have. Numerous plot points from the manual were forgotten or twisted beyond recognition. Rewriting the plot of HotS and LotV to be less stupid does not fix those problems because the franchise jumped the shark back in SC1 when it turned Mengsk and Kerry into caricature supervillains and killed off the vastly more intriguing and sympathetic Overmind.

The foundation does not support sequels because the protoss and zerg have been twisted into washed-up has-beens with nothing to distinguish them from the terrans and have absolutely no goals, desires or motivations of their own. They are nothing more than marionettes moving to the whim of the writers playing second fiddle to the terrans.

The only way to fix this is to reboot the franchise back to basics and go from there with the benefit of hindsight.

That's easy for me to do because all you have to do is to stop taking the perspective that I'm arguing from "1998" then with that post. The questions I raised there are still valid since it hinges on people caring enough about the manual to want to go into the depth you're proposing.

How are you not going to get bogged down into what amounts to minutiae/details that people may or may not care about? What constitutes as progress in your reboot narrative? What's part 1 of your narrative? Where does part 1 end? What stuff is going to be covered in that and is it really that important to go into certain details if all of it's just mood setting with nothing of significance happening the whole time? Is it really going to feel important enough to some grander narrative if we go into this detail? Is it all gonna join up and when - part 3, 7, 12? What makes people care enough to get through all that before the actual conflict of the three races begins? It's all well and good for you to say what "should" have happened based on the manual but how does this form an engaging long-term narrative? Wouldn't this stuff be better covered with books than a game story? Some people just don't want to sweat the details to get to the good stuff.

These complaints are completely baseless. You can level them at every work of fiction that has ever existed. Just look at the setting of any long-running tabletop game or video game franchise if you want refutations. Warhammer 40k, Traveler, Shadowrun, Halo, blah blah blah.

"Get to the good stuff"? Starcraft does not need a narrative universe, it is just meant to provide the illusion of depth to what is otherwise a recreational strategy video game. It only appeals to people who care about that sort of thing, who form a small minority among starcraft fans. The gameplay ultimately comes first, and the story is just built around that.

The narrative universe we currently have is garbage. If we want to have the protoss, terrans, zerg and variations thereof fighting and allying with each other, then there are so many better ways to frame that.

I posted some fanfiction set in a rebooted setting. It will probably take me years to finish since I am not being paid to write/rewrite it and I suffer writer's block all the time, but those are my tentative forays. Feel free to constructively criticize them or whatever, I am sure that would be helpful in improving my writing or something.

[ragnarok]

The games suffer from a terrible case of sequelitis, as Tura has already explained. The original game was written as a self-contained narrative that sequels could never hope to match. For god's sake, it ended with the death of a villain who planned to literally eat all life in the universe and was the leader of one of the three playable sides. Of course no sequel could ever hope to compare and any sequel to that would only get worse!

The Queen of Blades was a Saturday morning cartoon villain who just wanted to take over and kill billions of people because the writer said so. Even the nazis and the taliban had more depth as villains, since they literally believed they were the good guys. Likewise, Amon just wants to kill everyone because the writer needs to force the three races to become friends and make peace at the end.

Not only that, but the SC1 final game narrative did not do nearly as much with its premise as it could have. Numerous plot points from the manual were forgotten or twisted beyond recognition. Rewriting the plot of HotS and LotV to be less stupid does not fix those problems because the franchise jumped the shark back in SC1 when it turned Mengsk and Kerry into caricature supervillains and killed off the vastly more intriguing and sympathetic Overmind.

The foundation does not support sequels because the protoss and zerg have been twisted into washed-up has-beens with nothing to distinguish them from the terrans and have absolutely no goals, desires or motivations of their own. They are nothing more than marionettes moving to the whim of the writers playing second fiddle to the terrans.

The only way to fix this is to reboot the franchise back to basics and go from there with the benefit of hindsight.

Speak for yourself. I've said enough on the Kerrigan topic, but if you really must know why I'm still sympathetic towards her, let's just say I have personal experience (not in the exact way) when it comes to people who are TOO sadistic without even knowing it. Believe me, that WILL inevitably cause hatred towards the world.

For the 3 races coming together to deal with Amon (and since you mentioned the Nazis), you'd remember that the alliance against the Nazis was never an idealistic one. Hell you could remove the Russians from the equation completely and there were plenty of tension problems amongst the Western allies. Bottom line is that you have to work with people you dislike, and even those you believe might betray you in the end. Having said that however, I felt it was a flaw for what happened at Ulnar. If nothing else I had at least expected Artanis to demand answers from Kerrigan as to what would happen in victory (given she had said the same thing in BW and look how that turned out)

[Mislagnissa]

Speak for yourself. I've said enough on the Kerrigan topic, but if you really must know why I'm still sympathetic towards her, let's just say I have personal experience (not in the exact way) when it comes to people who are TOO sadistic without even knowing it. Believe me, that WILL inevitably cause hatred towards the world.

I knew sociopaths too. They made my life hell. But that is besides the point. In SC1 and BW, the QoB is nothing more than a caricature that does whatever the plot requires. The Overmind had a reasonable justification for its actions. QoB and Amon do not.

For the 3 races coming together to deal with Amon (and since you mentioned the Nazis), you'd remember that the alliance against the Nazis was never an idealistic one. Hell you could remove the Russians from the equation completely and there were plenty of tension problems amongst the Western allies. Bottom line is that you have to work with people you dislike, and even those you believe might betray you in the end. Having said that however, I felt it was a flaw for what happened at Ulnar. If nothing else I had at least expected Artanis to demand answers from Kerrigan as to what would happen in victory (given she had said the same thing in BW and look how that turned out)

You are trying to retroactively justify the awful plot of SC2 rather than working forward from first principles. The comparison to the Allies breaks down because the Allies were all human beings. The protoss and zerg are aliens with very different physiology and psychology compared to human beings, and the entire purpose of SC2 was to destroy those differences as part of its terrible ham-fisted WC3 knock-off.

While I can understand the terrans and protoss allying for the greater good, the entire shtick of the zerg is that they eat people. Their entire purpose for existing is to eat everything that is not themselves. Every single aspect of their biology is geared towards making them more efficient killing machines or apparatuses to support an endless war machine. They evolved from the ground up (literally!) for the sole purpose of waging war on the entire universe.

Amon is an absolutely terrible villain whose sole purpose was to force the three races to make peace even though this makes no sense. The writers force the narrative universe to move towards their desired outcome regardless of whether it would make logical sense. Anything that gets in the way of the writers is either ignored or retconned.

Your entire position is build on sand. Somehow you recognize that SC2 is absurd and yet you refuse to abandon it.

You said you write fanfiction, yes? What have you written? Why is it so important that you use the SC2 as a foundation rather than ignoring it? Does using SC2 lead to a better story than not using it? How? If you wrote a story that rebooted to basics, would it be better or worse? Why?

I can tell you right now that I have already contemplated those questions and the answers are what lead me to abandoning the narrative of the games in favor of a reboot. I simply could not tell a good story given the restriction of canon and the logically inconsistent nature of the lore. I crave order and structure, so I cannot stand things which are utterly devoid of rationality.

[sandwich_bird]

"Get to the good stuff"? Starcraft does not need a narrative universe, it is just meant to provide the illusion of depth to what is otherwise a recreational strategy video game. It only appeals to people who care about that sort of thing, who form a small minority among starcraft fans. The gameplay ultimately comes first, and the story is just built around that.

No, just no... Starcraft doesn't "need" a narrative universe but it can certainly have one and the one it has isn't just a meaningless backdrop to gameplay. It's integral to the experience of the single player campaign. It's far from being an after thought and I really don't see why you would even think that. Maybe in South Korea nobody cares, but in the western world, the story definitely has/had a significant number of players interested. Enough to warrant Blizzard spending a lot of $ on the campaign anyways.

Honestly, the last thing I want is for Starcraft to get the overwatch treatment. I'd rather they continue a bad story than give us a remake without a campaign but with your perfect vision of a backdrop. That's all because the campaign is pretty fun even if it's stupid.

[Mislagnissa]

No, just no... Starcraft doesn't "need" a narrative universe but it can certainly have one and the one it has isn't just a meaningless backdrop to gameplay. It's integral to the experience of the single player campaign. It's far from being an after thought and I really don't see why you would even think that. Maybe in South Korea nobody cares, but in the western world, the story definitely has/had a significant number of players interested. Enough to warrant Blizzard spending a lot of $ on the campaign anyways.

Honestly, the last thing I want is for Starcraft to get the overwatch treatment. I'd rather they continue a bad story than give us a remake without a campaign but with your perfect vision of a backdrop. That's all because the campaign is pretty fun even if it's stupid.

That is not even remotely what I said. Seriously, I talked about how Enumerate exemplifies pretty much everything I wanted for months. Did none of that sink in? You just turned me into a strawman.

I would happily welcome the Overwatch treatment because it is the only thing Blizzard is good at and it would give me endless freedom to explore the themes I wanted to in fanfiction without jerks on fanfiction.net telling me I got their stupid lore wrong.

Most of the SC2 money comes from the Co-Op, not the campaign. That is why they stopped making campaign DLC. The vast majority of starcraft fans have no interest in the lore, the vast majority of discussion is about the game mechanics and so forth. Visit the subreddit or blizzard forums? Everything is about the competitive scene. Almost nobody cares about the lore.

Talking to you guys is extremely frustrating, but I will try to avoid blowing up. To put it in simple terms, this is what I believe:

• The canon is bad, restrictive, convoluted, irrational, etc
• The canon has an atrocious stranglehold on creativity and sanity
• The narrative needs to be rebooted for reasons of sanity
• The original manual lays out many interesting plot hooks
• Enumerate provides some pointers for how to lay out a unified timeline
• The timeline is supposed to be a support for a sandbox setting
• The idea is to provide a platform to writers to do whatever they want with very few limits
• I really do not like exploring the timeline past the point at which the manual assumptions cease to apply
• Major events like the fall of the Confederacy would require a lot of work to explain the aftermath
• The zerg successfully acquiring the determinant would result in another conflict
• This other conflict would not involve the terrans at all, not without tormented mental gymnastics
• Since the premise is the three races fighting, I prefer to avoid exploring the zerg's invasion of the protoss galactic empire
• That said, I still treat that as part of the overall timeline for those who desire it
  

If you have difficulty understanding my argument, then please ask for clarification.

[Gradius]

• Major events like the fall of the Confederacy would require a lot of work to explain the aftermath

So basically you’re advocating and think everyone else should get on board with a story where the status quo doesn’t change and pretty much nothing significant happens?