How dead actually is Starcraft?

[Turalyon]

@Misla

All my replies are merely food for thought. It's not my fault your confirmation bias can't permit you to see them as nothing more than un-constructive criticism/bashing.

I'm calling you out that's for sure, but I'm not telling you to do anything. I don't really care one way or another how you write your fanfic, I'm just putting down an opinion (I never claim to be right nor have intent to be so because the instant I do, I know I am most certainly not) because you've put this on an open forum and because others may be interested in following this, not just you.

A common theme I keep picking up is that your replies betray your stated intent. You say you want criticism but you seemingly don't. You say you're not doing it for self-aggrandisement, but you seemingly are. You say you're interested in others thoughts/open-minded, but not really and only of a particular kind that supports your bias. It's absolutely reasonable for me to ask why you are even bothering at all to put this on a forum or even ask for others input - and I say all this with no intent to offend, mind you.

You say you just want to make an alternate universe of SC. However, your motivation and underlying rhetoric about how shit/terrible/bad the actual thing we got and how good your version is going to be makes it hard for anyone to consider/engage your premise seriously when all you're doing is bandying about by saying you seek to emulate these other "better" works and shifting the setup around without giving any samples of your actual writing. You have nothing of substance to your absolute assurance that your story or any story that comes from this setup will be better than the apparent "shit" we got.

Also, I also don't get why you'd get upset or expect a different/better reaction from people who do respond to your premise by only saying "it's nice" and/or "well, it's not Starcraft" when they're all legitimate responses in a forum that is dedicated to the Starcraft we did get. It's kinda like you going into someone's home and telling everyone who lives there how much better there home can be, letting slip that it's really just a shithole, then expect them to thank you for telling/suggesting this to them and you feeling even more upset than the people who live there when they don't reciprocate your feelings!

[Mislagnissa]

Trying to argue that Starcraft is nothing more than the soap opera dynamics between Ray, Kerry and Arty is absurd. The question of what is and isn't Starcraft will be rendered moot by whatever Blizzard does next to continue the story. The story of Ray, Kerry and Arty is dead and gone. Whatever comes next won't have them.

Starcraft is about conflict between terrans, zerg and protoss. That's what it has always been about. I fully expect whatever story continuation comes out will do some lazy hack job to justify a conflict between them with cosmic consequences or whatever. I don't expect any consistency whatsoever.

Although the morale problems at Blizzard means that it might be a while before they do anything with Starcraft. Most like they'll either do DLC for StarCraft 2 or Heroes of the Storm. If they make a new game, it will likely be mobile shovelware.

In any case, caring about the Starcraft story is pointless. As far as stories go, it is a complete mess. Plot holes galore, idiotic characters, etc. Blizzard clearly never cared about it, so why should we?

I mean, you could create something halfway decent by rebooting the story. Reboots happen for loads of IP with good results, like My Little Pony and Transformers. Starcraft is at the point where a reboot is a pretty healthy choice, healthier than continuing the existing pseudo-continuity. It is continually going to be retconned so extensively that it might as well be a reboot, so why equivocate?

[ragnarok]

Trying to argue that Starcraft is nothing more than the soap opera dynamics between Ray, Kerry and Arty is absurd. The question of what is and isn't Starcraft will be rendered moot by whatever Blizzard does next to continue the story. The story of Ray, Kerry and Arty is dead and gone. Whatever comes next won't have them.

Starcraft is about conflict between terrans, zerg and protoss. That's what it has always been about. I fully expect whatever story continuation comes out will do some lazy hack job to justify a conflict between them with cosmic consequences or whatever. I don't expect any consistency whatsoever.

There's always a way to tie them together, though ironically enough prior to any info we had on SC2 there's been those who've also tried to see if it was possible to unite all 3 races against a common enemy, but we didn't need Amon for that.

[Mislagnissa]

There's always a way to tie them together, though ironically enough prior to any info we had on SC2 there's been those who've also tried to see if it was possible to unite all 3 races against a common enemy, but we didn't need Amon for that.

I have always thought that was a ridiculous idea that required completely ignoring how blood feuds work in reality and mutilating the characterization of the factions.

Why would you go to the effort of creating three sides, each with dramatically different history, motives, aesthetics, etc... only to systematically destroy what makes them unique to force them together?

[Nissa]

Because of story. People and nations naturally band together from time to time, and so expecting these factions not to do so is silly. Particularly in the face of something devastating to the entire sector. What needed to happen is another expansion set (or something not unlike one) to settle the arcs of the main characters, and possibly even eliminate the Zerg as a major threat, so that the sequel or spin offs resulting could focus on smaller stories. Every story only has so much value, which is why multiplayer is important to keep players interested.

And no, eliminating the Zerg doesn't damage the story. Since they're basically roaches, having them linger on outer worlds and/or reappear from the darkness is far from implausible. Not to mention that the hybrids could at that point take on more of a villainous role.

[Mislagnissa]

Because of story. People and nations naturally band together from time to time, and so expecting these factions not to do so is silly. Particularly in the face of something devastating to the entire sector. What needed to happen is another expansion set (or something not unlike one) to settle the arcs of the main characters, and possibly even eliminate the Zerg as a major threat, so that the sequel or spin offs resulting could focus on smaller stories. Every story only has so much value, which is why multiplayer is important to keep players interested.

And no, eliminating the Zerg doesn't damage the story. Since they're basically roaches, having them linger on outer worlds and/or reappear from the darkness is far from implausible. Not to mention that the hybrids could at that point take on more of a villainous role.

The scenarios in canon make as much sense as the Nazis, Taliban and Israel teaming up against America. The author (in this case Blizzard) contrived scenarios to force the three races to team up and ignoring compelling reasons they would not. Pretty much all canon alliances were poorly contrived.

EDIT: The zerg actually were the sector devastation you mention. Where the story went wrong was when it changed their role to space orcs.

EDIT: The character arcs are already settled. Blizzard officially said so. Any sequels will be about original characters. Raynor, Kerry, Mengsk and Amon are either dead or gone forever. They are never coming back.

It does not make much sense for Raynor to team up with Tassadar in SC1 considering that the latter incinerated billions of innocent people. No, the "ends justify the means" is not a good excuse at all. The terrans should be demanding that the protoss leader go on trial for war crimes. Remember Nuremberg? Even if you ally with them for the short term for whatever reason, the terrans would logically still demand a tribunal after. (Furthermore, the planets being incinerated was contrived by the narrative. Metzen needed it to force the plot to make Mengsk into emperor.) That is why I devised the alternate explanation that Tassadar actually tried to stop the genocides, not take part in them. That way, he had an easier time (albeit still difficult) convincing the terrans to accept his help.

It makes absolutely no sense for the zerg to ally with other species of their own volition. They see everything else as food. Metzen had to mutilate their characterization in order to get them to behave as Kerry pets and whatever. Hence we get the "corrupt" zerg acting like peaceful space orc hippies, while the feral and primal zerg are unrepentant monsters.

Considering the volume of short stories that were written before and during the SC2 status quo, as it were, I think there could be an infinite number of stories told against a back drop of the three races fighting over the sector. There is no need to eliminate the zerg (whatever that means in this context). Quite frankly, the events of BW and SC2 should have been impossible after the zerg devastated the terrans and protoss in SC1, but we got them anyway.

Are we talking your hopes for canon or fanfiction? Because I highly doubt Blizzard will do anything like what you suggest. They probably ignore everything that came before in favor of some wildly implausible story with original characters revolving around another galactic war called the Third Great War or the Second End War or some other odd name that feels somehow trivializing of the events.

Blizzard cannot write well and their canon will never be a solid foundation for good stories. We have seen more than enough evidence for that. I expect in another decade or so that you guys will finally come around to my point of view after Blizzard consistently fails to meet expectations. Assuming this forum does not die in the interim.

[ragnarok]

I have always thought that was a ridiculous idea that required completely ignoring how blood feuds work in reality and mutilating the characterization of the factions.

Why would you go to the effort of creating three sides, each with dramatically different history, motives, aesthetics, etc... only to systematically destroy what makes them unique to force them together?

Because to me, you can't expect them to fight each other indefinitely. Look at our history and the tribal problems in the past. At some point someone has to come up with a different approach than just "kill everyone."

[Turalyon]

I mean, you could create something halfway decent by rebooting the story. Reboots happen for loads of IP with good results, like My Little Pony and Transformers. Starcraft is at the point where a reboot is a pretty healthy choice, healthier than continuing the existing pseudo-continuity. It is continually going to be retconned so extensively that it might as well be a reboot, so why equivocate?

As long as Blizz is holding the rights to the Starcraft IP, a reboot isn't going to happen. It's also not profitable for them to do so since otherwise, we'd see more story/campaign content by now. Keep on dreaming/working on that fanfic though!

For me, the Starcraft universe works better as a one and done kinda thing (I would've been satisfied with just Sc1 really even though I do include BW as part of it). It may not have been to your liking or some things were just plain asinine fridge logic but eh, it had it's moments and that was enough. Sure, I speculated on what would/could happen next but I felt better imagining this stuff and not wanting to actually see a sequel. I never thought of the universe and story as being expansive as Wh40K, where things would just go on endlessly nor the need for it to continue (or, in other words, a franchise). It felt self-enclosed and was better for it because it was eventful and the status quo shifted heavily in that time.

Although there are many of the following I enjoy when done in interesting ways and are not inherently "bad", I generally distrust most things that are prequels, sequel, reboots, remakes, spinoffs and crossovers because they're usually all about capitalising on and exploiting nostalgia to prop some agenda (which I collectively call all of it 'sequelitis') rather than a bonafide attempt to try something novel and innovative. So a reboot of Starcraft is no guarantee that it'd be "better" since the likelihood of it turning out to be either pointless, derivative, worse than before in other ways or all of those things is higher, not less. There are exceptions of course but I'd have to see it to believe it and the chances of even seeing that, are slim.

[Mislagnissa]

Because to me, you can't expect them to fight each other indefinitely. Look at our history and the tribal problems in the past. At some point someone has to come up with a different approach than just "kill everyone."

Remember when others told you to be more credulous? You still are not credulous enough.

Nobody expects peace after a few years of fighting a galactic war with billions of civilian deaths. That is blatantly absurd.

It took millennia for humanity to reach the peace we have now, and it is still extremely uneasy. One mistake and we have nuclear war.

Furthermore, you are ignoring my point about this requiring mutilating the factions by destroying their uniqueness and motives. The protoss and zerg are aliens, not funny looking humans. They have alien psychology and societies.

That is not the kind of attitude you should have if you intend to write serious military fiction or xenofiction. To write that well, you need to study a variety of fields and get way outside of your comfort zone and preconceptions. Otherwise your fiction will not be believable.

I suggest reading military fiction and xenofiction to get a better idea of how things work. Blizzard fiction is not a remotely good teacher.

[ragnarok]

I've read dozens of WWII books, Mislag. I know how there's still tension problems today. You can argue that the only reason such full scale wars aren't happening anymore because in the nuclear world, something like that would mean total extinction of the human race.

Having said that, I'm curious to know what xenofiction you'd suggest first.