Fantastic Critique on Starcraft 2 forums

[phazonjunkie]

And agrees to attack Char with half of his other enemies fleet, without any kind of plot or subplot forcing him to do so. He ends up going there killing millions of people to... save his love. What a manic-depressive, egoistic prick Raynor suddenly becomes at the end of the campaign.

That's a bit of a skewed interpretation don't you think?

First of all, Raynor WASN'T in charge of the invasion initially; it was Gen. Warfield, and by extension, Valerian. In fact, Raynor was the one who SAVED it. It was General Warfield & Valerian who made the mistake of launching a direct frontal assault on Kerrigan's primary hive clusters (against Raynor's advisement) and because of it, the whole offensive was in danger of becoming one of the biggest clusterf****s in the history of the galaxy. The first mission on Char lampshades this point. It was an ill conceived invasion that was rapidly going south and it was only by the efforts of Jim & his Raiders that the whole thing was salvaged and made into something resembling a successful operation. Gen. Warfield, after seeing who Raynor truly was as opposed to what Mensk had led him to believe, and acknowledging that Raynor was his best shot at completing the operation, gave him full command of the dominion forces. The fact that scores died during the assault was irrelevant at that point. They were in too deep now, and had little choice but to see through to the end.

As for the claim that Raynor's sole motive was due to some misguided selfish love for Kerrigan, maybe that was part of it, but it wasn't the sole reason. Although it's established that Kerrigan must live, one way or another, she needed to be STOPPED. Raynor knew this and deep down, despite their misgivings, so did his crew. Unfortunately, while he had extensive experience and resourcefulness, he was lacking in resources and manpower.
Valerian Mengsk however, had both but lacked the necessary knowledge and experience in dealing with the Zerg to pull such a military operation off.

[mr. peasant]

Then why isn't there any felt "relation" between the two during the campaign. It's all about what's happening other places until you find yourself on Char sacrificing millions of Terran troops, only yo get your love back.

There isn't much direct interaction between Kerrigan and Raynor. However, Raynor's guilt was certainly peppered over the campaign. It's why Raynor's having nightmares of Kerrigan's abandonment on Tarsonis, consequently why he's been drinking heavily, part of why he hates Mengsk so much (for all his 'tyranny', we don't see much of it), why Horner was uncertain of what Raynor would do should they encounter Kerrigan again and why Raynor was willing to make a deal with the devil by cooperating with Valerian and by extension, the Dominion much to his crew's displeasure. One can also argue that it is why Raynor fought so hard to save the Agrian colonists; since there are some parallels between them and Kerrigan.

[Drake Clawfang]

The other thing about Raynor allying with Valerian is that the Hyperion crew and Raynor himself aren't entirely comfortable with it. On the other hand, they've got half the Dominion fleet backing them. As Raynor himself said allying with Valerian may not have been the smartest move, but it was the best chance he was ever gonna get to go for Kerrigan again, regardless of if he planned to let her live or not.

[BusinessMonkey]

I see your points and understand them very well. Yet, I can't really shake this feeling off, saying that it all seems fine on paper, but during the storytelling too many of these "thought upon afterwards explanations" aren't that percieveable.
It works well on paper, but not once you're in the middle of it. That is what makes a great storyteller, the ability to have people delve into your stories while you're telling them. That way you can always retell them, because people won't get tired of hearing them since they are their best when being told.

I feel SC and BW succeeded in doing so very well. Whether you were in a mission, in a briefing, watching a cinematic, reading a prologue or epilogue, or simply having turned on the game, the atmosphere was there. The story unveiled itself, and (most importantly) FELT ORIGINAL, even though almost every aspect of the game had been heavily stolen from the Alien universe.
Maybe the way SC1 had very blatantly stolen it's universe (in a material sense), helped you to focus more on the original aspects, like the incredible story.

And to go back to the OP, retconning many of these key lore elements must've really shaken the firm ground that which is SC lies so assuredly on.

[Shadow Archon]

When you have even a minimal trace of decent writing, you must realize that if you show powerful war machines been activated easily in the place of a huge lost battle, you must give a decent reason of why they weren't used during that battle. And with this, i'm exclusively pointing my finger at whatever guy written that part.

Unless you have seen the whole war for yourself, what says they didn't use those machines during the battle? Zeratul wasn't surprised by their appearance, and it could have just been apart of a base set up by a Protoss rescue team. (Note the Stalkers in the Warp Gate.)

[Norfindel]

Unless you have seen the whole war for yourself, what says they didn't use those machines during the battle? Zeratul wasn't surprised by their appearance, and it could have just been apart of a base set up by a Protoss rescue team. (Note the Stalkers in the Warp Gate.)

We all seen the most fierce and important part of the whole battle. The Overmind had the greatest amount of Zerg surrounding it. If they weren't used there, they weren't used at all.

It could been many things, but none of this things were explained at all, so it's bad writing.

[Shadow Archon]

We all seen the most fierce and important part of the whole battle. The Overmind had the greatest amount of Zerg surrounding it. If they weren't used there, they weren't used at all.

It could been many things, but none of this things were explained at all, so it's bad writing.

Game mechanics, non canon.

Everything during the game play is not canon.

[Drake Clawfang]

I agree that the new format didn't immerse you quite as well as SC and BW did. Though the original game was restricted to talking portraits, it gave it a very war-like feel. You felt like you were in a war room, the background looked like a base, characters would talk over each other and to each other rather than address only you, etc. Mission briefings, especially for the Terran campaigns, felt like the commanders meeting before a big mission to go over strategy.

SC2 didn't capture that same feeling. I get what they wanted to do, make us feel like we *were* Jim Raynor rather than, as Tychus said, an "armchair general," but it didn't work. I never really felt like I *was* Raynor. One thing I miss I think would have helped, the dialogue trees they showed in the first campaign trailer. In the finished game characters either have conversations with you or they don't, and they're highlighted when they want to. I would have liked to choose what to talk to them about and how to respond to them, rather than just clicking on a character and watching a small scene. Dialogue trees would not only have given us more control over Raynor's interactions with the characters but allowed us to explore those characters deeper.

Wouldn't you have liked to ask Tosh how he knows Nova, or how/why he went rogue? Or ask Swann about the units more? The conversation about the Vultures was my favorite, I would have liked more interactions like that with the guy, ask him what he thinks about units or hell, even ask how he thinks I did on the last mission.

Swann: "I got the field reports back from Bel'Shir. Man, you were lucky they didn't bear down all their air power on ya, or we'd been toast. I didn't power up that Factory just so you could use it as a giant paperweight."
Raynor: "Goliaths aren't exactly cheap Swann. I had what I felt we needed. We weren't there to fight remember, no point wasting time and resources."
Swann: "Yeah, but we weren't there to die either. Next time try and keep some more defenders patrolling our base, ya never know when something unexpected could show up."

Now wouldn't that be a cool convo to have in-game? Swann giving you feedback on how you did after every mission? Depending on how in-depth it would have went you could have actual gameplay tips being provided.

[senervo]

when i think about it, even as i didn't really like how the ultimately progressed nor how it ended, it could prove interesting in the end as (i don't want to spoil here) this will probably wake a huge amount of conflicts around some of the characters in Hots and if it had ended as (a lot of people wished) it would probably be too hard to make an exiting, or any story at all for that matter for the remaining games, unless they would've been about nothing but the conflicts regarding the dominion and possibly the return of xel'naga...?

all in all... fun to read...
i liked some parts of it... even should i disagree, a human who takes action for his cause, i respect...

[Norfindel]

Game mechanics, non canon.

Everything during the game play is not canon.

Uh? What's so difficult? They asspulled the units. There's no explanation whatsoever of how Zeratul unlocks them, or even them been available, or used in the battle before, or nothing. All we know is that the Colossi are banned for use, and then 2 of them appear really easy as Zeratul approaches. That's not good storytelling, no matter what you guess it happened.