How dead actually is Starcraft?

[Mislagnissa]

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.

Blizzard is terrible at writing military fiction, so I would have thought your reading experience would have made you more aware of that. Tactics, strategy, logistics, right?

There is not much xenofiction in general, much less about group minds, but tvtropes has a xenofiction page listing some examples. Kindle only seems to return a novel about a bee worker’s POV.

[ragnarok]

Blizzard is terrible at writing military fiction, so I would have thought your reading experience would have made you more aware of that. Tactics, strategy, logistics, right?

There is not much xenofiction in general, much less about group minds, but tvtropes has a xenofiction page listing some examples. Kindle only seems to return a novel about a bee worker’s POV.

Yeah, such tactics are considered utter BS. I still remember back in HotS's "Fire in the Sky" mission, where you have to keep awakening the scourge nests to wreck the Gorgons. And I was watching that mission and I couldn't understand the Dominion's stupidity for putting the Gorgons in the trench. All they had to do was fly the ship higher and they could have fielded more.

And it didn't matter if you use the "WWII in space" concept. Even if we assume flying too high meant crap accuracy, this is killing the zerg we're talking here. You're not supposed to spare ANYONE, so accuracy is irrelevant.

[Nissa]

Uh, Mislag, what Rag seems to be saying that Blizzard would do better by being more on the realistic side. While realistic = good may not always be true, the fact of the matter is being realistic by ceasing eternal war is a better idea than eternal war. People can only stomach so much violence. Eventually they'll go to extremes to stop a determined enemy (Nukes), have not enough resources to continue (the wars fought against Brian Boru in Ireland), realize that political means are better at getting what they want (United Nations), realize that economic means are better at getting what they want (Post WWII Japan), realize that manipulating the ideals of the simple minded is better than outright war (muslim terrorists combined with sympathetic propaganda), cultural melting removes the threat (Norse invaders integrating into Irish society), or, indeed, a bigger threat exists to encourage people to ally (former Soviet satellites negotiating peace with each other in the attempt to unite together against Russian control).

The only reason eternal war makes any sense at all is because of the Zerg. Zerg are animals genetically coded to fight. Real people get sick of war over time, even if they aren't already openly opposed to it.

[ragnarok]

Actually Nissa, since you brought up the topic of post WWII Japan, I hope you know that their actions in the war wasn't total BS. Look at all the European actions in their brutality in colonizing Asia before that, and then they got drunk on power thinking it was their destiny to rule Asia forever. You can argue all you want, but in a way Japan's actions merely sped up the inevitable.

It's the same thing in the SC universe: no one wants the war to continue forever. The Q here is who would be the first to find a permanent solution to it all. To a degree (and this is before SC2 was out) I felt this could have been a reason for why Mengsk wanted Valerian's info on Xel'naga artifacts and such back in the DT Saga, as sooner or later you'd think the Dominion people would expect him to put an end to the swarm for good.

[Mislagnissa]

Uh, Mislag, what Rag seems to be saying that Blizzard would do better by being more on the realistic side. While realistic = good may not always be true, the fact of the matter is being realistic by ceasing eternal war is a better idea than eternal war. People can only stomach so much violence. Eventually they'll go to extremes to stop a determined enemy (Nukes), have not enough resources to continue (the wars fought against Brian Boru in Ireland), realize that political means are better at getting what they want (United Nations), realize that economic means are better at getting what they want (Post WWII Japan), realize that manipulating the ideals of the simple minded is better than outright war (muslim terrorists combined with sympathetic propaganda), cultural melting removes the threat (Norse invaders integrating into Irish society), or, indeed, a bigger threat exists to encourage people to ally (former Soviet satellites negotiating peace with each other in the attempt to unite together against Russian control).

The only reason eternal war makes any sense at all is because of the Zerg. Zerg are animals genetically coded to fight. Real people get sick of war over time, even if they aren't already openly opposed to it.

I am glad that we can agree the zerg are supposed to be monsters.

The problem here is manifold. Blizzard has a history of devising absurd excuses for war to continue their stories, with Warcraft being even worse in this regard. I have no doubt that SC3 or the equivalent will be just as bad.

But this is precisely the sort of thing I address in my fan-fiction reboot pitches. The first contact war has only been going on for a decade or so in my timeline, but there was plenty of opportunity for alliances. The difference is that this is a character-driven narrative: there is nothing that would convince everyone to set aside their differences and team up. The zerg have their own problems and cannot steamroll all opposition to force an alliance, that is why they are harvesting people for research. The protoss empire considers the whole thing a minor border dispute because their space covers an eighth of the galaxy and many hundreds of worlds at the least.

I don’t understand your criticisms and I feel we are talking about completely different things.

[Nissa]

Oh, well, I was only trying to support what Rag was saying in how factions teaming up makes sense, not make an overall point in what you guys were talking about.

Anyway, if we all could get back on topic about whether or not SC is dead, that would be great. There's other places to discuss fan AUs.

[Mislagnissa]

Oh, well, I was only trying to support what Rag was saying in how factions teaming up makes sense, not make an overall point in what you guys were talking about.

Anyway, if we all could get back on topic about whether or not SC is dead, that would be great. There's other places to discuss fan AUs.

Blizzard is still making skins and co-op commanders. Fiction is still being licensed. SC does not currently seem to be dead, but it definitely is not their current focus.

WC3 is being remastered and revised, so it is possible that SC2 might receive similar treatment in the future. WC3R might very well introduce skins and co-op commanders as DLC.

Although Blizzard has never remade any of their games so far until WC3R, it is always possible that they might do remakes of WC1, WC2 and SC2 as DLC for WC3R and SC2. The remakes would of course have dramatically rewritten storylines for consistency with newer games, but probably introduce wholly new inconsistencies because this is Blizzard.

In any case, I would not expect good writing from Blizzard. The plot of SC3 or the equivalent DLC will be awful and full of retcons.

[ragnarok]

I am glad that we can agree the zerg are supposed to be monsters.

The problem here is manifold. Blizzard has a history of devising absurd excuses for war to continue their stories, with Warcraft being even worse in this regard. I have no doubt that SC3 or the equivalent will be just as bad.

But this is precisely the sort of thing I address in my fan-fiction reboot pitches. The first contact war has only been going on for a decade or so in my timeline, but there was plenty of opportunity for alliances. The difference is that this is a character-driven narrative: there is nothing that would convince everyone to set aside their differences and team up. The zerg have their own problems and cannot steamroll all opposition to force an alliance, that is why they are harvesting people for research. The protoss empire considers the whole thing a minor border dispute because their space covers an eighth of the galaxy and many hundreds of worlds at the least.

I don’t understand your criticisms and I feel we are talking about completely different things.

Monster is only a relative term. I don't condone the Evolution story for trying to change the zerg to become something else, though the trust factor happened too quickly. Something like that can't happen in just a matter of hours. You'd need years before even the slightest chance of a bridge can be built.

[ragnarok]

Blizzard is still making skins and co-op commanders. Fiction is still being licensed. SC does not currently seem to be dead, but it definitely is not their current focus.

WC3 is being remastered and revised, so it is possible that SC2 might receive similar treatment in the future. WC3R might very well introduce skins and co-op commanders as DLC.

Although Blizzard has never remade any of their games so far until WC3R, it is always possible that they might do remakes of WC1, WC2 and SC2 as DLC for WC3R and SC2. The remakes would of course have dramatically rewritten storylines for consistency with newer games, but probably introduce wholly new inconsistencies because this is Blizzard.

In any case, I would not expect good writing from Blizzard. The plot of SC3 or the equivalent DLC will be awful and full of retcons.

Once again, it shows you continue to see the only "success" the SC2 storyline did was it failed everything. I keep telling you, not everyone is going to reject it like that. It doesn't make them wrong or you right. I still want to see if they'll try to explain it away in SC3, if they ever get to it, rather than just take the shortcut with the whole "Oh everyone is only in it for the multiplayer, so no one will notice if the story has its contradictions" approach.

[Mislagnissa]

Monster is only a relative term. I don't condone the Evolution story for trying to change the zerg to become something else, though the trust factor happened too quickly. Something like that can't happen in just a matter of hours. You'd need years before even the slightest chance of a bridge can be built.

The Zerg are monstrous space bugs. Only a complete idiot, like Blizzard obviously, would want to turn them into bloody space hippies. That bloody ruins them. It would be like treating the Cthulhu meets Hello Kitty comics as dead faced serious rather than the comedy they are.

The zerg are not rachni or formics. They are the devouring swarm. Have you played Stellaris? The devouring swarm civic is mechanically incapable of diplomacy and can only interact through warring with and eating other species. That’s how the zerg should be.

Kerry and Zagara are [insert misogynistic expletives] who deserve [insert descriptions of torture in hell here].

Please don’t try to convince me otherwise. It won’t work. Talk about something else, PLEASE.

If the tyranids had personalities like the zerg did, I would switch to WH40k in a heartbeat. But because bloody gatekeepers told me that isn’t allowed (40k fans can go [insert more expletives]), I’m stuck with you guys.

Look, I cannot find any bloody fandoms that cater to my tastes unless I put all the bloody years of effort and millions of dollars I don’t have to make my own Starcraft clone. You could easily find several fandoms for your tastes. Please stop trying to take this away from me. I don’t have anything else.

Once again, it shows you continue to see the only "success" the SC2 storyline did was it failed everything. I keep telling you, not everyone is going to reject it like that. It doesn't make them wrong or you right. I still want to see if they'll try to explain it away in SC3, if they ever get to it, rather than just take the shortcut with the whole "Oh everyone is only in it for the multiplayer, so no one will notice if the story has its contradictions" approach.

Pretty much everybody (except you it seems) acknowledges that Starcraft story is shlock. It was definitely created as an afterthought. That’s how Blizzard writes everything, so I don’t understand why you are so upset. Just accept it: Blizzard can only write shit. They have always written shit and they always will.

Video games in general have shit standards, so this isn’t anything new.

I don’t understand why I continue to frequent these forums when discussion is both pointless and actively hostile to my mental health. You are absolutely no fun to talk to. You suck the happiness right out of me like some kind of dementor.

Must be my masochism, I suppose.