Metzen and his team should retire?

[spychi]

Holy ****, can you be anymore of a paranoid conspiracy freak?

No, I "know" this because of all of the the impressions/previews I've read written by people who played the game at BlizzCons.

How do you know there's oxygen in the air? Because they said that?

.. *sigh*

I will rather stick to my "paranoid conspiracy theory" than suck their balls
cause it's my opinion and I won't change it, you can even call me a stubborn troll, it won't change anything
end of discussion

[Gifted]

I know its off-topic, but anyone have any idea what happened to him? Medical College got tough? I miss his structured arguments that lead to confrontation.

1. I don't know what happened to him, though it was around the spawn of sc2. I suspect he just went on to pay attention to other aspects of his life. With the amount of posting he did here it had to take a lot of his time.

2. Unfortunately with some witty research on some of his most "thought out" threads, I started to find a trend unfortunately. If you remember, the majority of his replies were more like "kinda random reply that was intended to egg conversationalist on". When I started to google those responses.. I found that in reality all he did was look over at teamliquid's thread's which he'd duplicate here, find responses that he liked and copy/pasted them over here as if they were his own. I have a txt file with over 35 posts of this in the "Blizzard Chatroom" thread over here, the REALLY large one. It explains why Demo got mad at him repeatedly for Archer saying something that was "on subject" but not "in response to anyone" while never replying to anyone at who asked questions.

I am surprised that you called me a troll, while the definition of a forum troll doesn't apply to any of those post in this thread, offtopic and other threads yes but not this one

oh and Tychus how do you know that? because they said that?

"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

I understand that you're sharing your opinion. But ultimately, the immediate reply said it best:

Well... You are a troll. You have an incredible bias against blizzard and you try to back it up with facts; a flimsy mask for some personal conflict you have with them. Simply put, you're not really contributing anything credible to the conversation.

Not to say your opinion is wrong, but your views are pretty damned skewed.

"You're not contributing anything credible to the conversation". While your opinion is your own, and I completely understand/respect that... the small bit that you contributed to the conversation was your thoughts regarding ME's writing vs SC2s. The roots of a troll is intent or tone. I see your intent is good, don't mistake me. But the tone is what's pegging you down.

For the record, I only perceive you as a troll in specific threads, such as this one, in other threads you contribute damn well.

Good idea. Do you want to make the poll or should I?

Don't need to, it's been an off and on point/thread in terms of discussion. The question that might pose a better subject is not "did the writing staff fail" but rather "What qualities or traits contributed to the story not being as good as it could have". I know it is a simple change of words, but the discussion from the latter could be SO MUCH better than the former. Approach the "discussion" not the "sides".

let's just say that if a guy posts at a Blizzard fan forum and he is against them, he is screwed from the start no matter how much his arguments are valid, it's like christian fundamentalism; our god is the true one

Naw, there are other posters who have repeatedly shown that despite them being against a decision that SC2 had included, they approached it with a way of trying to share their side while listening to the opposing side. Hell, we have giant articles, such as the battle.net one, that basically says "Hey Blizzard, nice try but you missed the ball and need to fix it". Constructive conversation doesn't have to be one sided... and it doesn't have to have hard lines drawn. Those are traits of a debate.

I will rather stick to my "paranoid conspiracy theory" than suck their balls
cause it's my opinion and I won't change it, you can even call me a stubborn troll, it won't change anything
end of discussion

Just quoting this to show you where many would perceive you as a troll in this post. Again... intent vs tone. Your intent is to say "Hey guys, this is my view". The tone will easily mislead people from replying to the intent though because you elude that anyone who would disagree with you is "sucking Blizzard's balls". The subconscious of many people will read this as "It's my opinion, respect it cause it's not changing. But YOUR opinion, if it's different, means you are sucking their balls". In other words, if they disagree with you, you insult their opinion. That's where the perception of "trolling" is being perceived.

[pure.Wasted]

There are two parts to this question, and consequently I've got two answers for you.

For the fandumb troll portion, the answer is obviously no. As others have said, it's Metzen and his writers who are intimately familiar with the universe. In 9 instances out of 10, they know just how to progress the world forward ten years (thematically, visually) without compromising its identity. Likewise, and perhaps more importantly, we've seen from WOL that the teams know what they are doing. I can't emphasize this enough. Almost all of the mistakes made in WOL, and there were quite a few, are the kind that can be learned from and corrected in future installments. Legitimate, warranted, or not, they can be filed under "experimentation" and "trial run." You might not like that it turns out that Blizz was experimenting with something you paid for, but as far as an analytical discussion goes, that's completely irrelevant. We didn't like the choices? They can remove them. We didn't like the plot stagnation? By removing a choice-based narrative, they have the power to make it far more dynamic. We didn't see enough characters? They can invent new ones. We didn't see enough places? They can invent new ones. We didn't like the lack of interesting villains and the lack of feeling like Raynor is as on the run as he should be? These are all things that can be used as a learning experience. TFT proves without a shadow of the doubt that these writers (many of them the same guys) are capable of all these things. TFT wasn't that long ago. They just need to get used to the new environment and all the tools they have at their disposal.

For the non-troll portion of the question... maybe. It's not so much that Metzen & Co. need to leave, as it is that they need to get some new blood brought aboard. I'm not talking about your typical sci-fi/fantasy fare writers, people from Warhammer or Richard Knaak. I'm talking about genuinely competent writers. Hell, hire a (credible) screenwriter if you have to, the game's cinematic enough. There are quite a few things we've heard at BlizzCon or on the behind-the-scenes segments of the DVD that make me a little concerned. Things like when Metzen laughed at himself a few years back for being a "one trick pony" with the 'everybody unite to save the world from a galactic evil' plot, which is seemingly turning out to be the case yet again. Or when he mentioned on the DVD that the writers, being geeks as they are, had their first impulse to blow shit up and big, not do some romantic lovey-dovey stuff with Raynor and Kerrigan as they did (which is obviously what we want [not necessarily for it to be a happy ending, just for it to be resolved/continued in SOME way]). He's very humble and modest about his contributions and his role, and I respect that very much, but I think they need some input that isn't coming from the same 'geeky' angle, I think they need some competent writers who can twist thrilling plots together without resorting to the next-in-line on the sorting algorithm of Galactic Evils.

[broodmywarcraft]

The fact that they had to RETCON the overmind, which basically retconned the original and brood war because they could not work with the existing lore already jumped the shark for me!

Hell, I've written fan fiction (I like writing, laugh at me if you want to) that worked with what brood war left off with and it was head and shoulders above what they gave us!!

[pure.Wasted]

The fact that they had to RETCON the overmind, which basically retconned the original and brood war because they could not work with the existing lore already jumped the shark for me!

Two things. First, it is still very much unclear what role the Overmind is going to play in SC2, and to what extent they are retconning anything. Tassadar's message was very, very vague. There are ways to interpret what he said that seem to compromise the SC1 plot, and there are readings that do not compromise it. I think that jumping to conclusions prematurely when the plot strand has been left deliberately vague is not in our best interests.

Also, a few posts on the lore forum have brought to my attention a few ways in which this could actually bridge gaps in the SC1 narrative which, until now, were huge gaping plot-holes. Why did the Overmind take a physical form on Aiur where it would be vulnerable to attack? Maybe because it wanted to die. Why did it leave Kerrigan, raising whom it had made such a top priority, back on Char? Maybe because her importance was in outliving it and, eventually, bringing the Zerg back to their roots. Take WOL's answers (or un-answers, anyway) away, and we're stuck with a narrative which we insist on viewing through rose-colored glasses and missing the canyon-wide plot chasms.

Hell, I've written fan fiction (I like writing, laugh at me if you want to) that worked with what brood war left off with and it was head and shoulders above what they gave us!!

I'm studying writing in university so I don't see why I'd be laughing. Nothing wrong with fan fiction, either. I've written fan fiction that attempted to form a cohesive and compelling narrative out of the mess they made with Stukov, that introduced no new elements and instead created interesting ideas by re-arranging the elements that were already in play. So I know exactly where you're coming from.

That said, change isn't always a bad thing. And it isn't always a retcon, either. I suggest we give it some time.

[Triceron]

let's just say that if a guy posts at a Blizzard fan forum and he is against them, he is screwed from the start no matter how much his arguments are valid, it's like christian fundamentalism; our god is the true one

And you wonder why you're being called a troll? You're acting like a guy who goes around telling Christians how much their god fails them. It's one thing if your opinion goes against the grain. It's another thing entirely to make your argument and try to convince people that your beliefs are right and everyone else is wrong.

If you think fanboys are bad, you're no better being a troll.

[Louis]

Wait, the overmind was retconned? How? What I saw was the overmind turning Sarah Kerrigan into an infested woman child to use against the swarms unspecified enemies. If it was refering to the Protoss then she would have commanded her to join the Aiur invasion and it was quite apparant from dark origins and omega that the protoss were not the enemies Kerrigan was looking for. Also, the overmind seemed like it wanted nothing to do with her after the infestation was complete.

I guess you could say it's a retcon, but it was a retcon inserted into a plot hole so I don't see how it comes close to warranting the Simpons comic book guy levels of nerd rage.

[spychi]

And you wonder why you're being called a troll? You're acting like a guy who goes around telling Christians how much their god fails them. It's one thing if your opinion goes against the grain. It's another thing entirely to make your argument and try to convince people that your beliefs are right and everyone else is wrong.

If you think fanboys are bad, you're no better being a troll.

just the point of view, IMO you're radical, in your opinion I am radical

[TheEconomist]

It has nothing to do with the difference of opinion. It has everything to do with your methods of expressing it. Read Gifted's post for a better explanation.

Everytime I read a new one of your rants, a question starts nagging me and that is, "Why the hell are you even here if you hate StarCraft 2 and Blizzard so much?" You've repeatedly said that you think Activision Blizzard is an evil company unworthy of our support (yet you bought the game ) and you say that the game itself was a waste of money yet you regularly comment on it and play the MP.

Do you even actually believe what you say or are you actually just trolling?

[Kimera757]

I've written fan fiction that attempted to form a cohesive and compelling narrative out of the mess they made with Stukov, that introduced no new elements and instead created interesting ideas by re-arranging the elements that were already in play.

And why didn't you post a link?