Anybody know Starcraft?

[VelvetViolet]

Bug girl is not really the issue. Bug girl would have been find if they had a collective of eyeball monsters play a larger role, expanded on the Terran and Protoss factions. The concept was thin off the ground and with SC2 they nose-dived it into a dead-end.

I don't see how Blizzard could have done that when they bulldozed the civilizations in the first game and setup bug girl and her ex-boyfriends as the main characters of the entire universe. The game script was an interpersonal drama/space opera first and the war story part played second fiddle at best. The first game relied on several blatant plot contrivances including the psi-emitter, dark templar magic, and zerg-killing temple.

I don't think that's a solid foundation.

 

[Sadras]

I don't see how Blizzard could have done that when they bulldozed the civilizations in the first game and setup bug girl and her ex-boyfriends as the main characters of the entire universe. The game script was an interpersonal drama/space opera first and the war story part played second fiddle at best. The first game relied on several blatant plot contrivances including the psi-emitter, dark templar magic, and zerg-killing temple.

I don't think that's a solid foundation.

I'm saying the creation of bug girl is not the issue. Raynor is not the issue. You have to have protagonists in a story.
The issue was making too few protagonists and making the central theme bug girl and raynor's interpersonal drama.
And as I said, thin concept off the ground.

EDIT: For me SC2 was much more disappointing - because they had time to evolve/fix the story. They did not.

 

[Gradine]

I signed up for epic intergalactic war and all I got was this lousy psuedo-interspecies romance

 

[VelvetViolet]

I'm saying the creation of bug girl is not the issue. Raynor is not the issue. You have to have protagonists in a story.
The issue was making too few protagonists and making the central theme bug girl and raynor's interpersonal drama.
And as I said, thin concept off the ground.

Yeah, I can totally agree with that.

I often come across as abrasive because of my analytical and sometimes dogmatic way of thinking, and for that I apologize.

I think the plot of Episode 1 would have worked fine if it was self-contained and didn't redraw the political map of the entire setting without even giving us a reason to invest in the factions involved. We didn't learn anything about Tarsonis or Korhal enough to get invested in them or understand how they worked. If the Tarsonis/Korhal war was this small-scale self-contained story and there were plenty of other Confederate nations to get invested in, then I probably wouldn't have cared as much even if the psi-emitter is a blatant plot contrivance that I don't think should be able to work as advertised.

 

[VelvetViolet]

How could you not feel alone? You are aggressively denigrating people for enjoying a game the wrong way? If the Terrans were still "Confederates" I do not think the lore of the game would be doing too hot in the current environment regardless. Like, why did you need the plot of StarCraft II to be "good" ? If you want a gritty tale of interspecies warfare why not read a book? When did StarCraft not feature interpersonal drama? Like, the opening cinematic for StarCraft was incredibly tongue-in-cheek and featured a (short) interpersonal relationship between the two characters, "I love you, Sarge."

Also, I'm sorry for being abrasive. I am an analytical thinker by nature and I can all too easily become dogmatic. For that I appologize.

If anybody is enjoying a game the wrong way, then it is clearly myself.

 

[Kaodi]

Apparently StarCraft II is getting a 10th anniversary update - including making it easier to have custom campaigns. So maybe someone will make the bug-on-everything story you want. I am not sure we will ever see a StarCraft III at the current rate though unless RTS sees a major resurgence. I mean, it is not quite the same situation as WarCraft IV, because there is no World of StarCraft, but who knows...

Maybe once I get a new laptop StarCraft II will be one of the games I get back into at some point. They are actually adding a new campaign achievement for each mission.

 

[TwoSix]

Also, I'm sorry for being abrasive. I am an analytical thinker by nature and I can all too easily become dogmatic. For that I appologize.

If anybody is enjoying a game the wrong way, then it is clearly myself.

To be honest, if you enjoy fiction that focuses on systems, worldbuilding, and large-scale faction decisions over interpersonal conflict, you're probably not going to find a lot of material that's available for general consumption. That sounds more like a preference for rationalist-style fanfics.

 

[VelvetViolet]

I mean, it is not quite the same situation as WarCraft IV, because there is no World of StarCraft, but who knows...

I shudder to think of it. Would every expansion be about some new evil Xel’Naga coming out of the woodwork that the three races have to team up against, or would the three races be in perpetual war for absurd reasons?

To be honest, if you enjoy fiction that focuses on systems, worldbuilding, and large-scale faction decisions over interpersonal conflict, you're probably not going to find a lot of material that's available for general consumption. That sounds more like a preference for rationalist-style fanfics.

Rationalist? I’m describing the military science fiction genre (e.g. Starship Troopers the novel, the Confederation series, etc), or even a history book. You need characters to convey the story to the reader, yes, but that’s no excuse for the world to feel like a theme park. I haven’t a clue what “rationalist” is supposed to mean, I’m just talking about how good fiction is normally written.

I don’t know how else to describe it, but Starcraft doesn’t feel “realistic” even accounting for scifi elements like psychic powers. It feels like a theme park for the main characters to play around in, not a real setting of its own.

If I summarize the major plot beats of Starcraft, then they should sound pretty ridiculous. In episode 1 a horde of space bugs mindlessly follows a beacon and then leave when they’re no longer convenient. In episode 2 a million year old alien hive mind that has consumed countless worlds says that some random twenty something is the messiah. In episode 3, another messiah uses a magic spell to save the universe by crashing a ship into a giant bug.

I know space bugs and space elves are pretty unrealistic, but I’m suspending my disbelief. Otherwise I expect the setting to behave realistically and not rely on lazy plot contrivances and other such things that make no sense from a realistic perspective. Or if the jargon makes more sense to you, “rationalist.”

Am I getting my point across accurately?

 

[TwoSix]

I know space bugs and space elves are pretty unrealistic, but I’m suspending my disbelief. Otherwise I expect the setting to behave realistically and not rely on lazy plot contrivances and other such things that make no sense from a realistic perspective. Or if the jargon makes more sense to you, “rationalist.”

Am I getting my point across accurately?

Yep, you're pretty much the target audience for rationalist fanfiction. (If you're unfamiliar with the term, a dive into the rabbit hole that is TVTropes.org may help.)

 

[VelvetViolet]

Yep, you're pretty much the target audience for rationalist fanfiction. (If you're unfamiliar with the term, a dive into the rabbit hole that is TVTropes.org may help.)

Tvtropes says that it's fiction which tries to teach the reader logic, not simply all fiction where characters act in a "rational" fashion. The way it uses "rational" describes what I would consider any good fiction period. It overlaps with what the showrunner of nuBSG called "naturalistic science fiction."

I think I realized a simple explanation of what I don't like about Starcraft. I don't like the "space opera" elements, but prefer straight military scifi. I don't know why I didn't figure that out earlier.