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

[sandwich_bird]

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.

Right, so you didn't say that

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.

or that

It only appeals to people who care about that sort of thing, who form a small minority among starcraft fans.

So obviously it would make no sense for me to argue that the story is more than a backdrop or that there is a significant portion of people that enjoy the campaign.

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.

The competitive scene continuously has new things to talk about. That's not the case for lore fans.

Profits from a badly reviewed SP story DLC(something that is known to not sell to well in the industry to begin with) after a trilogy that had a weak story are obviously going to be overshadowed by the cheap to produce cosmetics and co-op items. I can guarantee you that if they'd make a starcraft 3 without a campaign, there would be an uproar in the west.



And yes, we all know what you want by now, no need to repeat it every 5 post you make.

[Mislagnissa]

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?

Blizzard clearly showed they cannot maintain continuity.

But no.

I propose introducing a timeline consisting of multiple eras with defined start points, end points, and spatial locations. Each era would effectively be its own status quo.

I prefer to explore only the eras prior to the fall of the Confederacy, because Blizzard didn’t butcher that period into stupidity and because the manual only covers that period.

The manual lore never had provisions for the Confederacy actually falling. Metzen said in interview he only came up with that well into development, along with QoB and the invasion of Aiur. Those were never actually planned by the time the manual lore and game mechanics had stabilized.

The final plot of SC1 was literally an afterthought. That is why it has multiple inconsistencies with the manual and fails to explore key plot hooks. That is why we never got assimilated terran units until SC2 (although the Aberration is actually a complete contradiction of the determinant, and for that matter contradicts the entire zerg MO. The entire reason they hunt new species is because they cannot spontaneously induce that level of change to the breeds they have.)

[Mislagnissa]

Right, so you didn't say that



or that



So obviously it would make no sense for me to argue that the story is more than a backdrop or that there is a significant portion of people that enjoy the campaign.



The competitive scene continuously has new things to talk about. That's not the case for lore fans.

Profits from a badly reviewed SP story DLC(something that is known to not sell to well in the industry to begin with) after a trilogy that had a weak story are obviously going to be overshadowed by the cheap to produce cosmetics and co-op items. I can guarantee you that if they'd make a starcraft 3 without a campaign, there would be an uproar in the west.



And yes, we all know what you want by now, no need to repeat it every 5 post you make.

you misunderstood me.

I can guarantee that SC3 will be just as divisive as its predecessor and have a nonsensical plot.

SC3 will undoubtedly do some or all of the following:

Make retcons that produce irreconcilable contradictions in the lore

Completely change the backstory and motives of major characters and factions

Introduced new villains from nowhere

Introduced new major organizations from nowhere

Ignore the military and civilians losses in past conflicts

Ruin the characterization beloved characters

Be a complete abomination according to fans of SC2, much less SC1

Rely on plot holes, deus ex machinas and idiot plots for everything

Consign previously important organizations to obscurity

Completely rewrite the metaphysics of the universe again

Display obvious signs that the writers had no familiarity with previous games

Will introduce the UED as the main antagonist

Will forget about the UED again in favor of something else

Will destroy the UED again and reduce them to an obscure footnote

Introduce time travel as a deus ex machina to do whatever the plot requires

Will introduce a conpletely new faction nobody had ever heard of as the main antagonist

Bring back the xel’naga as the main antagonist

Resurrect the Overmind again

Create infinite clones of the Overmind

Retcon the Overmind into a xel’naga

Retcon the protoss and/or terrans into genetic descendants of xel’naga

Retcon the xel’naga into protoss a la the dark voice portrait

Retcon the xel’naga into humans

Resurrect dead characters with cloning, mind uploading, time travel, literal magic or some other plot device

Introduce a massive protoss population that never existed previously

Reintroduce the determinant from the SC1 despite other retcons

Constantly argue with itself about whether terrans and protoss are truly capable with zerg or not

Will introduce infested/assimilated protoss and inconsistently treat them as either the same or different from hybrids

Will destroy Earth to show off the power of the new antagonist

Will invalidate all the major events and plot points of previous games with retcons

Turn heroes into villains and villains into heroes

Introduce new protoss factions that never existed previously, but stubbornly refuse to call them tribes

Introduce new protoss tribes out of nowhere

Introduce new dark templar and forged tribes out of nowhere

Introduce new dark protoss messiahs that are not Ulrezaj

Introduce new factions of zerg that are not primal, corrupted or feral

Introduce a new zerg leadership caste that isn’t cerebrate, brood mommy or pack leader

Introduce a new protoss caste

Introduce new broods of zerg

Introduce previously forgotten pirate militias, tribes, and broods a la how WoW brings back obscure lore for minor quests

Reform the Confederacy, Protoss Empire, Zerg Swarm without explanation

Overthrow the Dominion

Turn the protoss/terran/zerg into villains

Rebuild the khala without explanation or forget it was ever gone

Contradict previous retcons or overwrite them with new retcons

Introduce Kerry, Raynor, Valerian, Fenix, Alarak, or any other named character as the main antagonist

Introduce a string of main antagonists who get shanked like bitches in their initial appearance

Retcon Amon into a good guy who was trying to stop a greater threat, a la Sargeras in WoW

Completely change Amon’s motives

Completely change the Overmind’s motives

Turn the dark templar into villains

Turn the forged into heroes

Rewrite Alarak and Nova as love interests, butchering their previous characterization

Rewrite the xel’naga as always evil

Rewrite Ouros as the bad sheep

Introduce a fourth race but not really

Place Earth in the Koprulu sector, a shuttle ride from Aiur

Depict characters casually traveling across the galaxy, as if distance is meaningless

Depict characters casually traveling between numerous galaxies instantly

Introduced a terrible hackneyed irrational conflict

Introduce a logical conflict only to ruin it

Contradict themselves within the same game

Have characters act in unbelievable ways that look cool until you think about them logically

Structure missions around gimmicks that make no sense as part of a coherent story

Introduce numerous obvious false dichotomies

Rely on insane troll logic for character decisions

Have characters act on information from the future that they cannot possibly know

Write prophecies predicting the future with perfect accuracy

Have characters write prophecies depicting their own deaths, which they will fail to stop

Write prophecies depicting the villain will be shanked by deus ex machina, which the villain will make no attempt to avoid

Depicting characters with contradictory and inconsistent power levels depending on the current situations

Events will occur due to writer fiat rather than logical cause and effect

Alarak and Nova will have a kid who will age up to teenager in one week

John Raynor will be introduced at an impossible teenage (he was born ~2494 ish?) and be paired up with Alarak and Nova’s kid

The events of Starcraft Evolution, Shadow Wars, Scavengers will be ignored/contradicted or rewritten due to the writers not bothering to read it

Niadra will evolve into the Overmind, then immediately get shanked

Cerebrates will be resurrected with inexplicable immunity to dark templar

The events of the game will be unpredictable by fans because the writers do not care for logic

A twilight path combining khala/void will be introduced

A new psychic power source unrelated to void or khala will be introduced

Another parallel universe of psychic space goo separate from warp space or void will be introduced

Void will be conflated with warp space

Outer space will be conflated with void

Outer space will be a new psychic power source called “space”

All dead zerg will be revealed as still having ghosts in the void or the “cosmic energy” plane a la the xel’naga

All the dead xel’naga will be resurrected without explanation, then shanked without explanation

Amon will be the main character

Raynor and Kerry will be the main character

Etc

[Gradius]

Blizzard clearly showed they cannot maintain continuity.

But no.

I propose introducing a timeline consisting of multiple eras with defined start points, end points, and spatial locations. Each era would effectively be its own status quo.

I prefer to explore only the eras prior to the fall of the Confederacy, because Blizzard didn’t butcher that period into stupidity and because the manual only covers that period.

The manual lore never had provisions for the Confederacy actually falling. Metzen said in interview he only came up with that well into development, along with QoB and the invasion of Aiur. Those were never actually planned by the time the manual lore and game mechanics had stabilized.

The final plot of SC1 was literally an afterthought. That is why it has multiple inconsistencies with the manual and fails to explore key plot hooks. That is why we never got assimilated terran units until SC2 (although the Aberration is actually a complete contradiction of the determinant, and for that matter contradicts the entire zerg MO. The entire reason they hunt new species is because they cannot spontaneously induce that level of change to the breeds they have.)

I'm not onboard with any of that knowing that what you consider a plot hole almost always boils down to some plot event not turning out how you liked. What about any of those events is inconsistent with the manual? The manual is a backdrop. Assimilated terran units were never promised. The determinant was about the Overmind's lack of confidence in engaging the protoss, not some definite promise to have assimilated terran units (it's not).

SC1 already has defined eras. I don't get it.

[ragnarok]

I hope you know some of the points you listed as predictions for SC3 would be considered too ludicrous even for the developers, Mislag.....

[Turalyon]

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.

You see complaints where I'm just asking questions. You're the one trying to justify the reboot/remake of the entire narrative, so how are you going to make me (let alone others) care about this new narrative?

You cite other works, but if you do that I might as well just partake of those instead if all you're really saying is you're just going to ape those.

"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.

I can't help but think you're being disingenuous here. You go on and on about the importance of rebooting the narrative but then go on to dismiss narrative as being worthless and nobody caring about it when I poke your position a little bit. You've just self-defeated your own aim and purpose of going into such depth in making a narrative reboot. Thank goodness you're not asking anyone to invest in this because you're doing a terrible job of pitching it.

[Mislagnissa]

I'm not onboard with any of that knowing that what you consider a plot hole almost always boils down to some plot event not turning out how you liked. What about any of those events is inconsistent with the manual? The manual is a backdrop. Assimilated terran units were never promised. The determinant was about the Overmind's lack of confidence in engaging the protoss, not some definite promise to have assimilated terran units (it's not).

SC1 already has defined eras. I don't get it.

I didn’t necessarily consider those plot holes. I just thought Metzen did a bad job of writing a game plot based on the manual. He never met my expectations. Insurrection did a better job with its story (not an amazing job, but a better one) even if the map design was terribly amateur.

I hope you know some of the points you listed as predictions for SC3 would be considered too ludicrous even for the developers, Mislag.....

People thought the same until SC2 came out. Considering the plot of WoW, anything is possible no matter how outlandish.

You see complaints where I'm just asking questions. You're the one trying to justify the reboot/remake of the entire narrative, so how are you going to make me (let alone others) care about this new narrative?

You cite other works, but if you do that I might as well just partake of those instead if all you're really saying is you're just going to ape those.



I can't help but think you're being disingenuous here. You go on and on about the importance of rebooting the narrative but then go on to dismiss narrative as being worthless and nobody caring about it when I poke your position a little bit. You've just self-defeated your own aim and purpose of going into such depth in making a narrative reboot. Thank goodness you're not asking anyone to invest in this because you're doing a terrible job of pitching it.

We went over this hundreds of times. I already tried to convince you to care over the past year. I mentioned Insurrection. I linked Enumerate. I listed plot outlines. I wrote fanfiction. Nothing has worked.

There’s nothing wrong with the Overwatch treatment. At least the Blizzard writers found something they are finally good at.

[ragnarok]

People thought the same until SC2 came out. Considering the plot of WoW, anything is possible no matter how outlandish.

And what exactly is WoW's plot? (Since I never got into the WC universe)

[Mislagnissa]

And what exactly is WoW's plot? (Since I never got into the WC universe)

The first game is the series was about orcs from a dying planet trying to conquer the human kingdom through a magic wormhole.

As of the latest WoW expansion, the story is about... honestly it is so far removed as to be completely beyond my capacity to care about. The king of the demons, who commands a bazillion galaxies’ worth of demons, is fighting against sentient black holes, which convert all planets they touch into more black holes, by destroying every planet in the universe. Or something like that.

Blizzard has been steadily forcing Starcraft onto the same path. Originally it was about the evil zerg trying to eat the terrans for dinner and the protoss for desert. Now it is about space gods trying to stop other space gods from destroying the universe.

I don’t understand how you cannot find fault with that. Blizzard doesn’t understand how to write engaging plots. Raising the stakes beyond the bounds of sanity does not make the story better.

[ragnarok]

Blizzard has been steadily forcing Starcraft onto the same path. Originally it was about the evil zerg trying to eat the terrans for dinner and the protoss for desert. Now it is about space gods trying to stop other space gods from destroying the universe.

I don’t understand how you cannot find fault with that. Blizzard doesn’t understand how to write engaging plots. Raising the stakes beyond the bounds of sanity does not make the story better.

Admittedly in the aftermath of WoL there were a lot of people who weren't too happy that the game was trying to imply that the Overmind was not the bloodthirsty monster SC1 portrayed him as. Given what the SC1 manual said, it certainly wasn't what I had been expecting.

To have the whole "space gods" introduced, again, I feel it was just Blizzard's way to find a way to put the Xel'Naga into the picture.